Dyslexia has affected some of history’s greatest minds, including Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso and Sir Stephen Hawking.
Now scientists have discovered that people with dyslexia have special skills that enabled our species to survive. They are better at solving problems and adapting to challenges and could hold the key to tackling climate change. Those with the common learning disability specialize in exploring the unknown – likely to be vital in the coming decades.
The findings published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology have implications both at the individual and societal levels. Lead author Dr. Helen Taylor, of the University of Cambridge, U.K., said: “The deficit-centered view of dyslexia isn’t telling the whole story.
“This research proposes a new framework to help us better understand the cognitive strengths of people with dyslexia.”
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Added Dr. Taylor: “We believe the areas of difficulty experienced by people with dyslexia result from a cognitive trade-off between exploration of new information and exploitation of existing knowledge.
“The upside is an explorative bias that could explain enhanced abilities observed in certain realms like discovery, invention and creativity.” It is the first study to look at dyslexia from an evolutionary perspective – shedding fresh light on its prevalence among high flyers.
