In honor of Dyslexia Awareness Month, members of Decoding Dyslexia Indiana, a grassroots movement driven by Indiana families to raise awareness about dyslexia, attended the Commission on Education meeting on Tuesday. I had the opportunity to speak about dyslexia while members of Decoding Dyslexia passed out awareness pins.
When Greenwood resident Cheryl Clemens first approached me at the Johnson County Fair this summer, I was surprised to learn that according to the National Institutes of Health and the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity, dyslexia is a language-based learning disability that affects one in five students. Dyslexia may affect an individual’s ability to read, write, spell and pronounce words. The degree of difficulty a dyslexic person has with such tasks varies from person to person.
Despite the commonness of dyslexia, misconceptions about the learning disability still remain. Dyslexia occurs in people of all backgrounds and is unrelated to intelligence. Dyslexia does not limit one’s ability to think, speak or be creative. In fact, quite the opposite is true. Some filmmakers such as Steven Spielberg have dyslexia in addition to business leaders like Charles Schwab. Even Apple founder Steve Jobs had dyslexia.
Let’s take time to educate ourselves about dyslexia and consider what we can to ensure a bright future for all Indiana students.
