Albert Einstein, the scientist and theoretical physicist, was described by his teachers in childhood as mentally slow, unsociable, and forever adrift in his foolish dreams. Einstein, the name associated with the word genius, was also one of the world’s most famous dyslexics. Back then they didn't have a name or diagnosis for dyslexia, but today it's a diagnosable disorder. I, like many other kids, struggle with dyslexia. 10% of Americans today have dyslexia, which is 32,276,201 people.
Dyslexia is defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary as “a variable, often familial learning disability involving difficulties in acquiring and processing language that is typically manifested by a lack of proficiency in reading, spelling, and writing.”
Dyslexia, to me, is like not being able to do anything involving words correctly, and feeling like it’s my fault that I can’t read or write without struggling. Sometimes dyslexic people are able to find a few tools and workarounds to writing and reading. In other dyslexics’ cases, they simply don't help.
“It's not all the time that I misspell words or read a sign wrong. It's kind of like when you know a word or a phrase, but if I was asked to spell it out loud there’s a constant fear of doing it wrong because you switched the place of two letters” said Alexa (‘19).
This shows how dyslexics have to deal with this disorder every day, and that it is always a subconscious fear. People who don’t have dyslexia often ridicule people that do have it, and sometimes make fun of us for sounding “stupid” because of our disorder.
“I really don't understand how dyslexia can cause you to not be able to read correctly. I just don't understand how it affects people so much,” said Devin Mitchell (‘21).
It makes sense that many people think like this because it's hard to explain and doesn't quite make sense to non-dyslexics. Sometimes people never notice that they have dyslexia, because they’re just told that they are stupid or slow. But it always affects them, and deserves to be treated with more empathy.