The Dyslexic Mind / Dyslexic Advantage Social Network

We've just launched a new social network called Dyslexic Advantage at Ning (http://dyslexicadvantage.ning.com). We recognized a tremendous need for a community that approaches dyslexia from the big picture - recognizing as much (if not more) of the strengths associated with dyslexia as its frustrations and learning obstacles. Dyslexia also changes dramatically through the life span - and needs of an 8 year old are different from a 16 year old, are different from a college student, and an adult at the peak of their career. Dyslexia also runs in families - and there are issues and that affect siblings, spouses, and the whole household dynamic - and we really found little discussion of that aspect of the dyslexic experience. Our site also has videos, podcasts, journals, and discussion forum.

For today's post, we thought we'd talk about the work of Dr. Matt Schneps, Director of the Lab for Visual Learning at the Harvard Center for Astrophysics. Dr. Schneps has become interested in the question of why so many dyslexics are in the field of astrophysics. In fact, he has an NSF grant to study the question and may still be looking for participants here.

One hypothesis is that dyslexics show advantages in visual peripheral processing that allows them to excel at spatial learning and anomaly detection - skills that may be well suited to main domains including astrophysics and scientific image analysis in general.

From an LVL Powerpoint Presentation:





So what makes it harder to focus in on individual words (individual word reading is often very weak) and the center part of words - may make it easier to see the outer edges. This fits with what we see in most dyslexic kids (and adults) and also with Karolyi's work finding that dyslexics excel at global visual processing and the detection of impossible figures.

"It's as if people with dyslexia tend to use a wide-angle lens to take in the world, while others tend to use a telephoto," explains Matthew H. Schneps, the lead author of the study. “It’s not that the close-up lens always makes better photos than the wide-angle. It’s that each is best at revealing different kinds of detail. Schneps adds, "We may be short-changing students who have reading difficulties...These students may have strengths for visual learning that we could be building on.” Such strengths are likely to be of particular significance for fields like science and mathematics, where visual representations are key to instruction…and to discovery.

CFA Harvard press release pdf
Wide and diffuse perceptual modes in dyslexia - auditory and visual
Eide Neurolearning Blog: Diffuse Attention Correlates with Higher Levels of Creative Achievement

Spatial Thinkers - Not Visual and Not Verbal

Although learning styles experts often mention "visual-spatial"together, a closer look at many of these people reveals distinctions - some who are both visual and spatial, but also other who seem nearly exclusively spatial, but not visual or vice-versa.

Spatial thinkers are more common than most people think (in our clinic, this applies to many children of engineers, physicists, mathematicians, architects, and dyslexic kids in general), but though they may initially think of themselves as visual thinkers, when questioned carefully, they confess that their thinking is not actually pictoral. Rather, thought processing seems to involve space or kinesthetic / bodily sensations or associations. Ideas are located at different positions in space (or associated with the body), or bodily "feelings" give rise to intuitive leaps or non-verbal certainties.

From the Root-Bernstein's (Sparks of Genius): "...Neuroscientist and painter Jacques Mandelbrojt says that "an artist creates signs by an interior muscular identification with the object he wants to represent". Mandelbrojt: "When I painted outdoors I identified myself..either with the simple and pure shapes of trees or with the entangled shapes of bushes. My memory and muscles still retain these internal muscular identifications..."

From the engineer author Eugene Ferguson, writing about the knowledge necessary to make an large machine such as a steam turbine-drive electrical generator: "not only visual but also tactile and muscular knowledge are incorporated into the machine..."

"Such hands know how tight is tight, when one more turn will strip a screw or crack a nut. They know how far they can bend different woods and metals before they crack..." (Root-Bernsteins)

In the figure above, researchers from the University College London add more information to the literature on spatial thinking and expertise. Studying experienced taxi cab drivers, they found not only that the cabbies were better at estimating real distances between London landmarks, but that the expertise did not seem to generalize to spatial recall of visually-placed objects or a complex visual geometric figure.

It would have been interesting if the researchers had interviewed the taxi drivers in more detail. Did they recall distances as a feeling of distances in space or in relationship to the body? Did they use visual imagery to picture places on a map or perhaps recalled by rote memory the distances and fares of previous passengers, etc.

In our clinic, spatial thinkers often tell us it is hard to explain how they recall what they know, but it is not like a clearly detailed photograph. Often they gesture and their recall seems tied to positions or bodily senses which the Root-Bernsteins have referred to as "proprioceptive thinking."

Additional interesting findings in this study - the spatial experts had significantly lower scores on verbal fluency (the ease of generating words) and auditory word learning - other findings quite common among the strong spatial thinkers (and often dyslexic) we see in our clinic.

Spatial expertise, but weaker associative memory pdf
Spatial but not visual
Spatially Gifted, Verbally Inconvenienced pdf

Different Brain Networks for Novelty-Induced vs. Voluntary Attention

This may come as no great surprise to parents or teachers, but still the implications are significant for the classroom: different brain networks exist for attention depending on whether it is novelty-induced or voluntary. So it should come as no great surprise that a child with strong attention for novelty things or ideas (perplexing puzzle, a strange objects, etc.), may still be seen to thoroughly struggle when trying hard to direct his or her attention (voluntary control). A novel stimulus captures attention passively (whether you want it to or not)while other brain pathways are responsible for attention under voluntary control.

It's those voluntary attention networks that are also more likely to take time to develop in children (including high IQ kids).

If we really appreciate this neurobiological difference, then - the question is... are we doing all we can to help teachers and parents "capture" the attention of novelty-based learners? Talented teachers (and parents) often know how to excite learning and curiosity using a variety of means (invoking wonder / awe - about beautiful things, mysteries / the unknown, puzzles, also funny stories, and the unexpected...), but they may have never been taught...it might have been they were novelty-learners themselves as kids.

As neurobiology increasingly supports the idea of novelty learning and novelty-based attention, however, may be we should think more about the educational expectations. We spend so much time trying to strengthen or speed up the development of voluntary attention, but perhaps we should spend as much time improving our capture of the attention that's already there -

Dissociable intrinsic networks for salience vs. executive control pdf
Eide Neurolearning Blog: Blessings and Burdens of High IQ


We talk more about novelty and attention issues such as this on the DVD of Day 3 of our Webinar: Attention, Sensory Processing, and Social Challenges of Gifted Children

Feeling, Learning, and the Brain: Why Lefties and Dyslexics Need Emotions to Learn and Remember

We've heard it so many times..."He can only do well in a class if he likes the teacher," or "The material has to mean something to her, before she can learn it...", but the link between feeling and personal relevance, and learning and memory has never been clearer for some of these students with this latest study from Johns Hopkins:

When performing an auditory word memory task, lefties (mixed dominance / left-handedness are more in dyslexics, individuals with spatial talent...), activated their emotions (amygdala) and personal relevance (left hippocampus) areas when remembering. This pattern is likely why we see such a personal (i.e. not impersonal or rote memory) preference among dyslexic students in our clinic.

It explains why some students really struggle to learn in classes where they feel their teacher doesn't like them, or why others may become paralyzed with the studying process when they have never been told (or can't understand) how the information presented relates to them. It's not just an unnecessary add-on; it may be essential.

Brain-based studies such also have direct implications for teaching. Not every student is alike, and emotions and personal connectedness may absolute requirements if teachers want to help all their students to learn.


Effect of handedness on fMRI activation in the medial temporal lobe during an auditory verbal memory task
Personal Relevance and Temporal Specificity - Left hippocampus
Eide Neurolearning Blog:The Benefits of Mixed-Dominance...Lefties, Dyslexics, and Gaming
Dyslexic, Left-Handed, and College Drop-Out Entrepreneurs