Learning disabilities don't exist

Last week I went to a talk about dyslexia and this time I sat straight in my chair because I knew what the person was talking about and it all made perfect sense to me. He said that learning disabilities don't exist and eventhough I think he didn't cover the whole picture, what he said was right and part of the puzzle.

Most people use both part of the brains and you need both to function optimally. Right handed people are predomantly left brained and left handed people right brained.

The functions of the right and left hemisphere are almost opposites, such as

Left......................................Right

Language thinking..................Pictural thinking

Intellect.................................Methaforic

Abstract................................Concrete

Realisme................................Impulsive

Analytic.................................Holistic

Most people have a dominant area. If you are dyslexic you are a predominant right brainer. You don't have to be a left hander but probably one of your decendents was. The more you are on the continuum of the right brain the more likely you are to think in pictures, which is the case of dyslexic children. For many of these children language doesn't make sense . They understand concrete words like horse and tree, because they can form a picture of it. The word hurry actually comes from a cart they used in the mines. Hurry up doesn't mean anything to them so they tend not to listen when parents say hurry up. Therefore they invented the term ODD.

Anyway they are in big trouble. When you are academically good and good in language you are very likely to become a teacher or when you are very academic a professor. These people have set up an education system in their mirrow image, valuing left brainers and down playing right brainers, although unaware of it.

When somebody is 70% right brain and 30% left, they are forced to work their whole life in the 30% area to make it stronger. Engineers and mechanics are often right brained. They have better insight in the technic than anybody but they are forced to write an essay about it, which is a nightmare for them and in practise a mechanic never has to be able to write to be good in his job. Most just drop out of school and some end up in crime.

Girls are equally affected by dyslexia but they mostly go undetected. Because they have several  language areas they can compensate for it. They are however far slower in processing the language.

In this time of vast change we need  creative people and if we ever want to see an Michelangelo again or an Einstein the attitudes have to change and people have to realise that right brainers learn differently instead of being learning disabled.  Maybe some left brainers can't because they have a learning disability in right brain thinking.