Research Suggests There's a Big Overlooked Benefit of Having Dyslexia - ScienceAlert

For those with the reading disorder dyslexia, the endless tangle of words can feel like an obstacle to survival.

University of Cambridge psychologists Helen Taylor and Martin David Vestergaard reexamined the traditional view of developmental dyslexia as a disadvantage, proposing its neurological characteristics could carry advantages under different circumstances.

"The deficit-centered view of dyslexia isn't telling the whole story," says Taylor.

"This research proposes a new framework to help us better understand the cognitive strengths of people with dyslexia.".

Over the decades, psychologists have noted those who present signs of having dyslexia also tend to be better at global abstract and spatial reasoning.

"We believe that 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, with the upside being an explorative bias that could explain enhanced abilities observed in certain realms like discovery, invention and creativity," says Taylor.