The need for more awareness about dyslexia

I saw a movie yesterday: an interesting movie I must openly confess. And what was the central theme of this creative, scintillating, brain-teasing, emotion-bursting movie: Dyslexia. Dyslexia is a learning disorder or disability characterized by difficulty in reading and writing. It usually occur during childhood.

According to the Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity, 1 in 5 people worldwide have dyslexia...that's about 20% of the over 7.7 billion people on earth! More importantly, over 85% of students with learning disability are dyslexics

Because of the intrinsic characteristics of dyslexic persons which include but not limited to reversal of numbers and letters such as writing "b" in place of "d" vice versa, difficulty in reading and writing, poor eye-hand coordination, amongst others, many people think they are dullards and useless. Dyslexics are highly intelligent and articulate. The problem is inability to read, write or spell. They think with images and feelings and not sounds or words.

Unfortunately we have many of these people in Nigeria that our poor educational system and the society has penned down as "never-do-wells," destroyed their self-esteem and thwarted their dreams. The Dyslexia Foundation Nigeria states that there are over 32 million Nigerians struggling with dyslexia.

Every child is special. That's what the movie taught me. Its high time we stop using a single parameter to measure children's performance. The uniqueness of the child should be the yardstick, not you or some dumb-ass traditional pedagogic appraisal. Dyslexic children need the utmost attention & care.

History has an extensive list of people with dyslexia who have expanded the frontiers of knowledge in science, art, business, music, etc. Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Walt Disney, Winston Churchill, Richard Branson, Pablo Picasso, Thomas Edison, Anderson Cooper, Steve Jobs, etc are just but few of the notable people diagnosed of dyslexia.

We need more awareness about dyslexia in this part of the world. Part of the problem in Nigeria is that teachers and parents are unaware of this learning disorder. Even in the event they teachers are aware, they often lack the experience and skills necessary to make a difference in the academic performance of a dyslexic.