The Misunderstanding of the Dyslexic Brain

Similar to the work of M. C. Escher, there is a square-shaped object that appears to be three-dimensional but cannot exist off-screen. On the other hand, it is a possible object that could exist in reality. In 2001, researchers conducted a study with images like this in which they asked people with or without dyslexia to identify what drawings were impossible. People with dyslexia were able to identify impossible figures much faster than those without dyslexia. The researchers connected dyslexia with a special global visual spatial ability to process a whole image rather than focusing on it part-by-part. This study was one of many over the last few decades that suggested something that many dyslexic individuals have only heard about in their own lives. Although they had difficulties with reading and writing, they often found enhanced cognitive strengths in other areas as well. I have a model in my head. I can spin it around and see ways to deconstruct it and flip it around. With a lot of these, it's the whole puzzle, not just the piece. It adds another layer of thinking, thinking outside the box, and the blues. We will call this blue sky thinking. It doesn’t mean I’m better than anyone else. It’s just the way my brain works. About 20% of the U.S. population has dyslexia, and their problems all stem back to here. The dyslexia brain is structured differently. It can create specific challenges, but it can also create specific benefits.

The brain isn’t wired to read. There’s no one region for reading, like there are for sleeping or engaging your fear response. Reading is an invention. It is an invention that’s only 6,000 years old. There’s still a lot we don’t know about the human brain. But over the last few decades, we’ve gained a better understanding of how we read.

When we’re young, we’re heavily activating both hemispheric parts of our brains. We’re spending energy learning how to read. For fluent readers, we focus more on the left hemisphere’s visual word form area. This region is key to recognizing letters and words. It helps us map letters to sounds. This is called phonological awareness. For example, breaking up the word cat into sounds such as “cah” and “tuh”.

Brain scans using dyslexic readers showed less activation in the left hemisphere, suggesting that there is often a disruption in the pathways that help map sounds to words and decode words. People with dyslexia also consistently showed overactivation in the right hemisphere when reading, making the task more laborious. This could mean that dyslexic people may struggle to recognize words and sounds, working harder to compensate for the disruption in pathways. This can lead to problems with grammar, remembering math facts, working memory, and more.

In the brain, neural pathways are connected to white matter. These pathways form a complex highway network that allows fluent readers to process a word in milliseconds. However, in the dyslexia brain, these highways and activated areas can look very different. In many cases, the neural pathways are not disrupted, but simply slowed down.

It doesn't affect anyone's intelligence... but now it's usually seen as a genetic learning disorder. But if we can learn more about different, more organized brains, we can better teach, work with, and help them. And ultimately, we can change the way we look at dyslexia. This constellation of strengths and weaknesses that go together. You can imagine how much easier it'll be for a child when they know it's not a burden, it's not a disease, it's just a unique and different part of their brain. They are unique and they are smart, the same way the rest of us are.