WHAT IS DYSLEXIA'S REAL SUPERPOWER?

Dyslexia's real superpower is NOT that all dyslexics become CEO's of powerful and successful companies, like Sir Richard Branson, as most dyslexics do not become CEO's.

Dyslexia's real superpower is NOT out of the box thinking, as many children and adults with dyslexia also have language processing difficulties that can hinder their speaking/expressive language abilities - but this might prep them for being a great heart surgeon, as we commonly don't expect surgeons to be great talkers, though many are dyslexic, great talkers and an exceptional heart surgeon/inventor, like James Alexander, MD.

Dyslexia's real superpower is NOT that you are a better "Big Picture" thinker than those with typical reading skills. As both typical readers and those with dyslexia can be equally skilled at "Big Picture" thinking. Charles Schwab commented repeatedly during a conference in San Francisco that it was NOT his dyslexia that made him more successful as a businessman. Rather, it was his desire to provide a product that banks would not provide, because the profit margins were too low. So, he chose to ONLY offer the low profit margin services, but brilliantly, he aimed to provide this service to millions of people and thus generate large company profits from the sheer volume of business. In his own words, his success had nothing to do with his reading skills or lack of fluent/accurate reading skills. Theodore Roosevelt on the other hand was a voracious reader and this clearly impacted his ability to be a Big Picture thinker too. In his speeches, he eloquently shared his vision for the future with the people and created visionary programs.

Dyslexia's real superpower is NOT having better mental imagery skills, so you can rotate 3-D images in your mind's eye & "see" whole neurological issues in a mental image or "see" theoretical concepts of physics before they are fully understood, or so you can have better recall than a typical reader. On the contrary, both typical readers and those with dyslexia can have amazing skills of mental imagery, like a world famous behavioral neurologist with dyslexia (Ken Heilman, MD) or a world famous typical reader & physicist (Stephen Hawking, PhD).

So, just what is Dyslexia's REAL Superpower?

What about the neuroplastic power of the human brain to rewire itself through experiences? The human brain, when provided with well-researched, highly-effective, evidence-based learning methods can change weak or inefficient language, learning, reading, academic skills, etc... into strengths! Is it truly possible for an adult or child with severe dyslexia to literally rewire his or her brain to more efficient, more effective and typical reading, spelling and/or writing skills?

YES! The Superpower of Dyslexia has nothing to do with dyslexia, but rather has everything to do with the SUPERPOWER OF THE HUMAN BRAIN.

Simos, et al, in 2001 showed that IF children with dyslexia (poor reading skills & atypical brain activity patterns) are provided highly-effective, intensive and scientifically tested/proven interventions, then their reading skills can improve to the Average range. If a child's reading skills are in the Average range, then the child no longer meets criteria for a diagnosis of dyslexia; no that does not mean that they don't still contain the genetic predisposition for dyslexia that will likely be passed on to their children just like their parents passed it on to them.

What are tenets of the SUPERPOWER of the human brain?

• The human brain can only learn that which is taught through proper and developmentally appropriate experiences. The human brain learns through experience-based plasticity - that means, new and appropriate "experiences" can create new wiring, which can lead to new learning and can lead to stronger skills & more advanced abilities.

Equally important, the brain activity of these children - who received an evidence-based intervention and no longer struggled to sound out words & no longer had poor phonological awareness - was identical to the brain activity of typical readers who also had well-developed phonological awareness and did not struggle to read.

IF the human brain is provided well-researched & highly-effective learning experiences, THEN the TRUE SUPERPOWER of the brain is its ability to rewire itself, build new skills and achieve higher levels of functional skills and abilities.

The brain is NOT pre-wired for speaking, reading, spelling, writing, walking, signing, dancing, etc...

The human brain IS pre-wired for learning and IF we provide the proper learning experiences at home and at school for children, teens and even adults, then the brain is able to build STRONG wiring and STRONG skills, including children with Dyslexia no longer struggling to read and no longer meeting criteria for a diagnosis of dyslexia, based on their reading skills, as they now read just like a typical reader who did not struggle to learn to read.

THIS is the SUPERPOWER of Dyslexia, as it is the SUPERPOWER of the human brain for all learning.

IF schools are required to use ONLY well-researched, highly-effective and scientifically proven methods instead of lining the pockets of publishers,

• NOTE: publishers of curriculum have made hundred of millions of dollars in profit from selling our schools the same methods of instruction for reading that have the same ineffective, unproven, poorly researched and limited effectiveness, but a new packaging and new labels/vocabularly, for more than the past 20 years,

then from these new, well-researched, and scientifically proven new experiences we can expect NEW outcomes. Presently, the US educational system has shown little to NO improvement in the success of teaching reading, despite decades of discoveries in science about how the brain typically learns to read, what are the most likely causal factors for leading to dyslexia/poor reading skills (poor phonological awareness), and how some methods are highly-effective at preventing reading difficulties with evidence-based early intervention at age FIVE years old - YES, in Kindergarten we can already work to prevent the emergence of poor reading skills.

We have the science, we have #DyslexiaScience, but we don't have this science in most schools, nor is this science being embraced and taught within our colleges of education who are supposedly preparing teachers with the most effective, well-researched, scientifically proven methods.

We know what to do, but it's time for the educational system to embrace scientific evidence of a program's effectiveness and "mix the oil of science with the current water of educational philosophy" - philosophy that is woefully lacking in rigorous scientific evidence. No more excuses!

It is time to stop blaming children's brains for the lack of educational success and literacy.

• The brain IS the SUPERPOWER and it works fine IF it receives the proper, developmentally appropriate, well-researched and highly effective learning experiences. It only "learns differently" if schools keep using poorly researched, ineffective methods for teaching the foundational speech processing skills that precede and are essential to the development of effective reading/spelling skills.

Research on dyslexia clearly shows that even the most severely dyslexic child CAN make large and long-lasting gains in phonological awareness and reading skills. Click on the brain wiring image below - the SUPERPOWER in all children - for an article that explains more about the science that is lacking in teacher training programs/colleges and in schools' instructional systems - it is our children/students who are paying the ultimate price for the US educational system's failure to bring evidence-based, highly-effective methods into schools. Some studies report that 89% of teenagers who commit suicide have spelling errors in their suicide notes that match those of spelling errors in children with dyslexia. Other studies report that 50-80% of women and men in prison are functionally illiterate. These are highly preventable outcomes, ask Ameer Baraka about his experience testifying before congress (see video below)

However, we have scientific research in highly respected, peer-reviewed journals that shows we can prevent more than 90% of students from reading below grade level, IF proper instruction in developmental language, NOT phonics programs, are the first training a child's brain receives for language development and then reading instruction. Let's think about it.....the #1 predictor of reading success or failure is NOT a reading skill - it is the speech perception skill of being able to perceive and manipulate the sounds within a spoken word (also called phonological awareness - the awareness of the phonemes/speech sounds in words, not letters, and the ability to manipulate these sounds in words).

Yet, despite the importance of this speech perception/processing skill, most all schools begin reading instruction with phonics programs. True, phonics is an important skill, but phonics is not the foundation or the predictor of successful reading skills. Not surprisingly, in every active language of the world we learn to speak the language first (watching, listening and saying sounds/words), learn to read and spell the language 2nd and last we develop the ability to write sentences, paragraphs and essays. So, if our educational system keeps trying to build the "house of reading skills" from the proverbial "2nd story up" and continues to FALSELY assume that all children have an equally strong "foundation of speech perception/phonological awareness skills", then we will continue to have 1 in 5 children with mild, moderate or severe dyslexia/reading deficits.

Ask Ameer Baraka about his childhood of severe dyslexia, poor reading skills, early life of crime and gangs, prison and his drive and desire to rewire his brain, build a better future and break the cycle of crime and prison. Ask Ameer Baraka how he greatly improved his phonological awareness, reading and spelling skills as an adult in his 30's, despite his life-long history of severe dyslexia. His SUPERPOWER is that his brain has always been capable of rewiring, improving foundational skills and building stronger reading and spelling skills. His brain's SUPERPOWER is that it does not "learn differently" if it is given the essential learning experiences that 1st build a solid foundation in speech-perception/phonological awareness, the decoding/reading skills and lastly comprehension/mental imagery skills.

Ask Ameer what his SUPERPOWER is, and he'll tell you it is NOT his past history of dyslexia. HIS SUPERPOWER is and has always been his brain and NOW! that it has the wiring needed to function at his true potential with accurate, fluent and well-developed reading and spelling skills he is feeling like he can achieve any goal and for nearly the first time in his life he more strongly believes that he IS a very intelligent man - literacy makes it easy to feel a lot more intelligent, because it can be another method to fuel the brain with knowledge/learning/vocabulary and reasoning skills.

Every child deserves to know that their TRUE SUPERPOWER is THEIR brain and its ability to build new wiring, new learning, new skills and new accomplishments life long - now THAT IS A SUPERPOWER!

(clieck this brain for an article on the detailed information of how the brain wires itself for language, speech and literacy skills)

Tim Conway, PhD is a neuropsychology researcher, dad of children who no longer struggle with poor reading skills, and a #DyslexiaScience advocate on Twitter with a life-long passion for empowering others to achieve their full potential.

• If you want to support the cause, please consider donating to the "Fred J. Wellington Foundation for Child Development" https://www.fjwellingtonfoundation.org. FJW Foundation will make sure more children receive more effective services, teachers have better caliber training opportunities, and more research is done on how to disseminate and implement the massive amounts of research on how to fuel each child's or adult's SUPERPOWER: BRAIN neuroplasticity for even greater growth and development and far better outcomes. As Horace Mann so eloquently stated:

Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men, the balance-wheel of the social machinery.

• 12th Annual Report to the Massachusetts State Board of Education (1848); published in Life and Works of Horace Mann Vol. III, (1868) edited by Mary Mann, p. 669

Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.

• Address at Antioch College (1859)