In this recent opinion piece in the NY Times, “The Upside of Dyslexia” science writer Annie Murphy Paul cites a few experiments that causes her to wonder about the positive attributes and cognitive abilities that may occur naturally in people who have dyslexia, and could in theory lead to better performance in certain artistic and scientific fields.
She discusses a couple of interesting examples, one of which involves the discovery by cognitive scientists at UMASS found; that their subjects with dyslexia saw things on the periphery faster than non-dyslexics. This has been repeated in additional studies. In these examples, those who can focus better on the periphery or outer aspects of a visual field (who are less proficient at discernment of the central field) can do things like find the logical flaws in “impossible figures,” such as the interesting and impossible images found in some of M.C. Escher’s work.
Similar examples are cited in other experiments done with undergrads.
I think it’d be fascinating to find out that there are inherent abilities in a given condition mostly viewed as a frustrating learning disability.
I wish experiments like these focused on four and five year olds. Brains are proving to be far more plastic or malleable than we ever imagined. So I wonder if skills like the peripheral vision ability in their subjects are developed over time, as a result of (someone with a reading disabilitiy) not practicing or knowing what to look for in the central field of vision while reading. Word analysis requires looking at specific patterns within the central field. As a result of repeated looking more at the non-discrete aspects of words on a page, the outer reaches are more what one pays attention to.
It’s an intriguing field, that of looking for strengths as well as struggles and I’m all for good research along these lines.
On the other hand, blind people seem to develop great auditory abilities that I’m sure are reflected in teh developing architecture of their brains.
Stay tuned.