Dyslexia = middle class word for Stupid?

[Will_3rd]

i wouldn't say all his post was rubbish. its weather people are using dyslexia as an excuse or just milking off the government.

i do agree that the condition exist's but what you said does take us back to weather people are milking it.

I found it doubtful in my opinion someone would "milk" a disability unless they were a chav and had really bad sunburn

I know lots of girls at uni who do physics?

What's the relevance here?

KaHn

Edited oh and you spelled "What's" and "relevance" wrong

 

[semi-pro waster]

i wouldn't say all his post was rubbish. its weather people are using dyslexia as an excuse or just milking off the goverment.

i do agree that the condition exsist's but what you said does take us back to weather people are milking it.

Could you just confirm for me whether you intentionally misspelt words, forgot capitalisation and abused a grocers apostrophe to make a point?

While as I've said I believe that some people (as with any system) will abuse the help available for dyslexics I don't think it entirely supportable to label all dyslexics of inferior intelligence or to put it another way if Richard Branson is of inferior intelligence I'm sure a lot of people would like to have his lack of intelligence and the implicit problems of huge wealth he has accumulated while suffering albeit not to be a beardy ballooning twonk.

 

[V4NT0M]

I think the disorder does exist... However I also think is mis-'diagnosed' and people just use it as an excuse. So many times at work I've made a comment about someone's mistake to hear 'i'm dyslexic'.

Too many people 'have' a disorder for which there is little evidence of an actual problem causing the symptoms. Its becoming like Dyslexia is a synonim for stupid, but it shouldnt be. There are people who have leaning difficulties, these people are not neccissarily stupid, just have problems with learning and more precisley communication.

For example, I have or had, something called Dyspraxia, which is a co-ordination disorder, thats more to do with movement and the problems I had at school were diabolical, to know what you're writing, to be very intelligent and have your work mis-understood and marked down because of bad handwriting is quite frustrating.

I imagine it is the same for people with dyslexia, they have average IQs with the ability to reason scenarios and problems on par with their peers, but lack the abillity to communicate that correctly to others.

So its a little disheartening to see people label all Dyslexic people as 'stupid'.

 

[KaHn]

Edited oh and you spelled "What's" and "relevance" wrong

As I said I can't spell for toffee, but I couldn't care less, so here you go this is just for you.

KaHn

 

[gord]

When everyone is dyslexic we will just coin a new medical term to call the stupid people. Then that will grow in popularity and the whole cycle can start again.

 

[Amp34]

I'm dyslexic and still have a bit of ADD, I suffer when it comes to writing anything, but give me anything practical to do, from programming to building things and I’m fine.

I was only diagnosed in my early teens due to my natural intelligence covering it up. Thou its no help when I’m tired and i completely loose the ability to speak.

That sounds very much like me BUT I have neither. I struggle on and accept it's my fault if I fail...

There is nothing good about the middle class.

Better than the lower class, at least they work and make money instead of sponging off the state. (and they don't have inferiority complexes).

Note I said lower not working class, there is a difference!

 

[churned]

I think it does exist, but stupidness is definitely being mis-diagnosed as dyslexia a lot, there's plenty of people that are dyslexic but are really quite intelligent.

 

[D.P.]

I do know some people from school that suffered from dyslexia. They had a lot of trouble reading, writing and doing maths etc.. and needed the extra help. But some of his friends were perfectly fine and claimed to have the same disorder.

In that case they were probably just plain stupid.

 

[Psyk]

I don't know whether dyslexia really exists, but just because someone is crap at writing and can't spell doesn't mean they are bad at everything. That's why it's possible to do well at university if you are "dyslexic".

My brother claimed to be dyslexic. He's not. He's just a crap speller.

 

[csmager]

Dyslexia possibly does exist - especially when you look at high achievers that suffer from it.

At my school, it seemed that all the people in the bottom sets had 'dyslexia' and had extra time. Of the 44 people who took Business Studies A-Level, 42 of them had extra time. It seems a little convenient that all the 'stupid' people had dyslexia. It's most definitely being abused.

The test costs money, and I've rarely heard anyone taking it get told that they don't have it - and they get their extra time.

My housemaster had the best suggestion: I don't disagree with these people having 25% extra time, as long as when they get a job they have to stay and work 25% longer than the rest of us.

 

[Hen_Dawg]

As said, dyslexia as a condition doesn't exist IMO, people who have dyslexia are of inferior intelligence and it's unfair they get an advantage over brighter students

Very ill informed.
I'm 25 and was diagnosed with dyslexia only a year ago, just as I finished my degree. And no, i got no extra help or money.
Was tested by a psychiatrist who confirmed dyslexia and dysgraphia. It also showed I have an IQ of 128. Explaining how I slipped through without detection. In fact many (if not the majority) of dyslexics have above average IQ's.

Yes, maybe some people 'milk the system' or whatever, but the condition is real and it affects people.

This docor who wrote the quote in the OP reminds me of the doctor who claimed MMR jabs caused autism. Nobody before or after agreed with him, just headline grabbing.

 

[ElRazur]

I am a true sufferer of this condition. i aint stupid nor dumb. I did the test, never faked it and i havent used the advantage of it ever - i.e request more time for exams or course works. As for been lazy, i dont see myself as one either.

People shouldnt mock/knock what they dont understand.

 

[Raymond Lin]

I've got it and so has my brother who got a 2-1 last year.

When I was diagnosed with it about 17 years ago I was the only person I knew with it and now it seems that everyone's got it.

My diagnose was done at a local hospital and they spent a whole day running different tests on my vision and writting and talking.

When I was at middle school I was given a lot of help with it and I have learnt a lot of ways to deal with it.

For me I find that I have to constantly check what I have written and normally I tend to get whole words mixed up rather than just bad spelling I also do this when I talk sometimes normally when ive got a lot to say.

I do agree that there is a lot of milking of the system going on and that the lines of diagnosis need to be drawn and adhered too or else people will continue to milk the system at the down fall of the people that actually do have it.

Perfectly coherent if you ask me.

 

[Johnny Girth]

Whether it's real or not, surely being dyslexic is just a medical name for sub-par performance.

Just like ADD has probably been around for centuries but the previous name was just a scalliwag.

So now instead of saying:

"Yeah, unfortunately my child doesn't perform too well in English and he is a bit of a trouble maker in class..."

It's:

"No my child does not underperform, he has dyslexia and suffers from ADD which he needs constant medication for..."

 

[Raumarik]

I believe there is some factual basis to the disorder, but also that boundaries have become blurred leading to over-diagnosis and consequently its use as an excuse for underachievers.

Working in a school I'd definately second that view

 

[yhack]

I think most people lie.
I can't spell either, I just use "Spell check this field"

 

[yoinkF]

I have been classed as dyslexic myself and even I will say some people use it as a poor excuse to lounge around. I found it extremely difficult to achieve in school, as my English is really poor. I find sentence structuring a total nightmare and my spelling is terrible. Despite this I was able to pull myself through an engineering degree. A lot of the people I knew with "dyslexia" just used it as an excuse to be lazy instead of actually putting some effort into bettering themselves.

Yeah, shows that extra time in examinations does help.

I never took advantage of the extra time in any of the exams I took. When applying to Uni I didn't even mention I was dyslexic (I thought it would put me at a disadvantage)

 

[Dureth]

its partly also i don't reread what i have written...

There you go. Most people are good spellers because they check their work afterwards. Even on this forum I often read my post afterwards and go back in to edit out the spelling mistakes.

 

[Siliconslave]

there are two main forms of dyslexia in my view (as a 'sufferer' of the second form)
media dyslexia - uninformed excuse to bash the school system, psychology, etc etc, basically seen as a fancy word for stupid, ignores all medical/psychological research etc in favor of attention grabbing headlines / quotes, idea sold to under achieving kids as a get out clause and unfortunately used sometimes to get extra time etc.
ie: "theres no such thing as dyslexia" said by the UK education sectary about 2 years, when she was actually saying there wasn't a single form of learning disability that was dyslexia, more multiple things held under one name.

Real Dyslexia - A learning disability, carefully defined through numerous scientific tests, (not based on news paper sales) peer reviewed by highly educated leaders of their fields. Effects people of all walks of life and intelligence levels. Limits (based on severity) certain areas of the brains ability to learn or preform in socially accepted methods of testing.

The first i have no time for, its a load of misquoted rubbish. Maybe some kids can cheat and get extra time, or maybe its a very blunt tool for "leveling" the playing field, regardless its not a fair way of leveling the method we choose to 'rank' people, but then unfortunately there isn't a much better one at that level.

The second is a very real and well defined condition, and unfortunately it only takes one person with negative research for it once again to get dragged through the papers as "media dyslexia" and everyone to start shouting about how its so unfair / only effects idiots.

From my personal experience 'extra time' was pretty much useless, i constantly underachieved in exams due to my inability to translate cogent though onto paper. Thankfully however i have slowly learned (with some very good and well focused support) to overcome these problems in the real world and thus can hold down a damn decent job thank you very much

 

[NokkonWud]

I've always felt dyslexia to be used as an excuse for people just not being that intelligent. I just completed a group project with a team of 6, one of which 'had' dyslexia, personally I couldn't see it as he just didn't seem that smart to begin with and seemed to be using it as an excuse for being a poor writer. Of course, being on a computer and having spell check there wasn't good enough, nor the fact he felt he basically had to type with his fists resulting in spelling errors (not letter reversal) on pretty much every single word. If he looked back to check he would have seen.

Yes, there are some genuine dyslexics out there, but I am very cynical of the number who claim they are.