My daughter is dyslexic. She was diagnosed early in life because I had worked for a man who is dyslexic (owned his own very successful business). When she began to display some of the “symptoms” of dyslexia, I had her tested. She has always had excellent grades, but numbers are her downfall. She will not own an analog clock or wristwatch as she cannot reliably tell time by those devices. I believe her father was also dyslexic, but never diagnosed.
I was fortunate in that they mainstreamed her at school and she didn’t realize she was “different” until she was in the 6th grade. By then she had been so successful in adapting that it was incidental to her.
She can multitask much better than her brother, who has a very high IQ. She works in IT - as you might guess IP addresses give her problems :-)
As many of said, it is amazing how adaptive people can be and what they can overcome if they have the will.
My special needs daughter is a much better test taker than her “gifted” brother and sister.
I’ll watch her do a test. She’ll zip through the things that she knows and does those things first. Then she’ll start working on things that are harder for her. For essays, she’s learned how to write something down and get partial credit. On multiple choice questions, she’ll narrow down the answers and make an educated guess. She is an awesome test taker. She does much better on tests than regular school work. She gets herself psyched up for them.
Her “gifted” brother and sister get stuck on questions that are difficult, and then they won’t finish a test. I’ve had to coach them on how to take tests.
Unfortunately, my daughter knows she’s different because she also has speech problems. She also just started having seizures which is really causing more problems. I’m hoping she’ll be able to overcome the siezures. The anti-seizure medication is just evil, but it’s less evil than seizures.
However, in the midst of trying to deal with seizues she has an amazing attitude. She’s 11 and she’s having to memorize states and capitals. Her teacher told me that my daughter didn’t have to know how to spell all of the states and capitals correctly. I told my daughter this, and she just got mad. She asked if the other kids had to spell them correctly, and I said they did. She told me to remember that she is the kid that likes challenges, and she would learn how to spell them correctly. That’s a great attitude.