[slg]

Personally getting diagnosed with dyslexia was a huge help to me. Like the article mentions it allows a mindset change when you can put a name to why you can't do something despite a tremendous amount of effort that other people can seemingly do easily. It also becomes a valuable tool to help protect yourself when needed. There were multiple times in my elementary and middle school years in which the ADA needed to be evocated on my behalf in defense against two specific bad teachers I had over those years. I wouldn't have gotten the accommodations and help I needed if the initial diagnose was just "slow to learn to read".

Side note, this was only possible because my parents knew the system, my mom was a teacher, and they had the resources and wherewithal to fight on my behalf. I can certainly see how not having that helps contribute to the inequality talked about in the article. I can also see how parents looking for any advantage for their child might abuse that system. However I don't think the potential for abuse warrants throwing the baby out with the bath water.

[Buge]

Instead of throwing out the benefits that you got from a dyslexia diagnosis, couldn't those benefits be also given to all students with with reading troubles? That's what the article is saying. I bet those bad teachers were also harmful to many other students with reading troubles.

[slg]

Yes and no. As both I and others have said elsewhere in this tread, with the broad definition of dyslexia "students with reading troubles" who will most benefit from extra instruction have dyslexia whether they are diagnosed or not. Getting those kids properly diagnosed is therefore a better strategy because that comes with added benefits that aren't directly related to teaching like the legal protections and the internal psychological benefits I mentioned and that were mentioned in the article. Without that diagnosis, it is easy for the child and the child's peers to view it as a problem with intelligence which can be damaging mentally.

[scotty79]

I've always had great difficulty with remembering things that are not associated with any sort of understanding I could acquire.

Remembering things like names of countries, capitals, seas, rivers for geography class required tremendous effort from me to achieve barely passable result (and to pass I also had to exploit an error that teacher made). All despite me having IQ in top 1% of population.

I'm sure if I was diagnosed with dysrememberia or something this would have been tremendous help to me. But nobody invented such condition. So I just had to accept that I'm just at low end of ability to remember data unconnected to any sense-making.

The system is rigged though and to pass maturity exam I had to ensure dysortography diagnosis for myself so my spelling (which I suck at as well) was ignored while grading.