Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I've occasionally heard people allude to the idea that "dyslexia" isn't really a discrete medical condition, but rather a sort of cope that parents use to prevent their kid feeling bad about being a bit on the slow side, or lacking in verbal comprehension. For example, Freddie deBoer:
Is there anything to this? Is dyslexia a real medical condition, or a contested one? Is it generally sensibly diagnosed by qualified professionals, or is there an epidemic of self-diagnosis muddying the water?
Personal anecdote, but:
Dyslexia is absolutely a real thing, distinct from generally being bad at reading/verbal reasoning/whatever.
I have mild dyslexia. I have never had any problems in school because of it (I was very good in school in general) except specifically with spelling -- if I mix up an i-before-e or something like that, I simply cannot see it.
This was true in school, and it's still true now, many years later. I work as a programmer, and before I installed a spellcheck in my coding enviroment, I had repeated issues with pull requests where I would misspell a variable name, use it hundreds of times (including in comments and documentation where there wasn't autofill or anything), and never notice. The code would work just fine, but my PR would inevitably have a comment to the effect of "this looks good, but you misspelled name everywhere".
If it's pointed out to me, I still can't see it until I stare at it for a few minutes, at which point the letters will almost physically rearange themselves in my perception and all of a sudden it's obvious.
Note that my dyslexia was never so bad as to make reading difficult -- I only ever swap one or two letters at once in the middle of words, and that doesn't really effect reading, but the 'letters physically rearange themselves in my perception' is definitely a real thing, and I can imagine a much higher degree of rearangement would make a lot of school really hard.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link