Dyslexia and Language - Disorder or Difference? - Maggie Snowling CBE

Check out Maggie Snowling discussing this lecture and your unanswered questions on our brand new podcast "Any Further Questions?' available on Apple and Spotify

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Difficulties with reading and writing have wide-ranging effects beyond academic achievement, including on career opportunities and personal well-being. However, the concept of dyslexia continues to be debated: is the term useful? How does it relate to spoken language?

This lecture describes what is known of the causes and consequences of reading difficulties and how they relate to other common conditions that affect learning. It will look at the importance of early intervention and how best to support children with dyslexia.

This lecture was recorded by Maggie Snowling CBE on 8th February 2024 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London

Professor Maggie Snowling is Emeritus Professor of Psychology, University of Oxford, and Research Fellow, St. John’s College. She is also professionally qualified as a clinical psychologist.

She was appointed CBE for services to science and the understanding of dyslexia in 2016.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:

[GreshamCollege]

Maggie appeared on the latest episode of our podcast 'Any Further Questions?' to answer all the questions we didn't have time to get to. Listen on Spotify and Apple now!

[alasdairrobertson]

Maggie - you diagnsed my dyslexia over 40 years ago - totally changed my life trajectory - thank you !!

[yodorob]

My grandfather had dyslexia, and I'm on the autism spectrum. All of these things, one way or another, seem to run in the family!

[juliarabbitts]

I’m dyslexic and learnt to read before Primary School, my reading age was always ahead of my actual age while at Primary school, my problems come from how my brain works.

[leonbird]

I am dyslexic, not diagnosed until my 50s, reading, spelling, and foreign language was hard to impossible .
I have used my difference to my advantsge.

[derunfassbarebielecki]

I was obviously dyslexic in childhood, the only help I got was from my mother, school said I was too intelligent to have this disorder, even though I had major struggle reading and writing the most simple sentences. Luckily enough I learned to deal with my problems and nowadays Im still a average slow reader and a painfully slow writer, but I understand text better and have a more versatile vocabulary than most people without this disorder. I think once you learn to deal with dyslexia, it becomes a big advantage, you might be slower, but the upside is you understand language much better than the neurotypical mind.

[royireland]

Is there any relationship to the ability to correctly spell words and dyslexia? To this day, I still have problems with spelling despite excellent reading and comprehension skills, and having obtained multiple degrees and having had a full career lasting over 50 years. I tend to spell phonetically .

[pixie]

A difference I think. My daughter's reading speed was exceptional when reading Chinese characters. Part of the assessment she had at university. Simply the way her brain 'reads'

[myparceltape]

I once saw inside elementary school where one of the walls had been whitewashed and used to show what each letter of the alphabet was.
Something local had been drawn beginning with the letter and the word written beside it. Everyday things that the children saw arranged on a wall and the word beside it. That was a lot easier to grasp than a book.

[emmettobrian]

After watching this, I have no idea why I was diagnosed. Everything described is the exact opposite of my life.

[myautobiographyafanfic]

As a dyslexic, disorder. Definitely disorder.

[rayleaf]

Considering that thhere seems to be a continued prevelance of dyslexia and also taking into consideration that there is a genetic component, could there be a reason why it exist? Does it provide an advantage to the individual or the community? Why hasnt it been selected against?

[yunfanli]

The rate of dyslexia is low in China. Interestingly many people who are okay to read Chinese have great trouble learning English. It's possible that some characteristics of the Chinese language prevent dyslexia.

[kban]

great talk. i know someone who has aphantasia and also has reading quirks. The reading quirks don't seem like dyslexia by any measure. Are there other reading issues that are not dyslexia? I think there might be a link to aphantasia.

[oakstrong]

What I want to know is, does dyslexia occur in languages in which the script is different, for example adjab (Arabic) syllabic (Cherokee) abugida, such as (Brahmic scripts) or pictograps, such as (Japanese?)

I have witnessed that adults to segment words in phonemes find it just as hard as children if they had never done it before.

[michaelchangaris]

Dyslexia is far beyond reading challenges but fine provide a science lecture that is more disinformation than accurate. It’s what I’ve come to expect. Society reinforces defining the difference in terms of people’s biases rather than reality. So kids who read differently are bothersome to teachers, ignoring the differences that are broadly present in their capacity, brains and insight. The science gets reduced to studying biases about how people should be rather than studying how reality is. Sad to see brilliant people dedicating their scientific work to bias not reality.

[davidfellowes]

As a dyslexic, I'm struck by what is missing in this process of understanding, because I'm not convinced that you have a full understanding at all. The focus on reading and the dyslexic impact slow learning to read has, whilst an important part of development, doesn't stop there at eight years old. Until those studies have taken the full life span of dyslexics into consideration, your understanding of the condition will remain limited.

Whilst slow learning to read has limitations for an individual, did that same individual, however, overcome these disadvantages, and at what age did this take place? Also, having overcome these childhood limitations did the same individual then excel, showing skills and traits not found in those quick to learn children? If so, in what areas of endeavour did these skills & traits occur and what neurological processes had occurred between childhood and maturity for them to have taken placed? Once these factors are considered, a possibly different neurological understanding may actually occur that hasn't to date been considered. Such a genetic and neurological understanding might differ enormously from those held by the scientific community today. The process of understanding, for me, is still be underway.

Dyslexia is not a disorder, but a gift evolution has bestowed upon a small portion of society. It differs greatly across the human population, something the neuro-typicals within human society can't grasp. It is a gift (or difference) that the AI community has already identified as optimal skill set. A gift that doesn't think in a linear way, but in a far more broad and expansive way that neuro-typicals can't appreciate nor understand. And, could explain the lifelong persecution by neuro- typicals of the divergent sector of their society. However, in the end, I believe we will reach an understanding of what those differences actually are.

[maxheadrom]

Disxelya?

Jokes apart - I really want to learn about it and Gresham College lectures are usually excellent!

[NantNia]

Thank you for explaining the condition . And yes it does go in family's.
My father had some dyslexia, I have been diagnosed with it and my son.
I felt having the diagnosis helped me not to blame myself for not understanding words but understanding that I had a issue that I needed to understand and work round the difficult. I say, I'm a wall with stones missing. If two stones besides each other it can fall down. I'm a Welsh speaker which makes it easier to spell.