What Are the Benefits of Dyslexia?

Dyslexia is a reading and language comprehension disability caused by a failure of the brain to make an association between the sound of a letter and the letter itself. As is common with the human mind, when one area of the mind is challenged, other areas flourish and grow to compensate. The result is often a disability with benefits. Some of the benefits of dyslexia are enhanced creativity, the ability to make novel connections between ideas, and enhanced personality traits, such as patience and empathy. Those with dyslexia may also solve problems in ingenious ways and multitask efficiently.

One of the many irrefutable benefits of dyslexia is enhanced creativity. This asset improves many aspects of a dyslexic’s life. Dyslexics often excel in the creative arts, exhibiting talent in painting, drawing, and storytelling. This creative aptitude more than likely grows from a dyslexic's need to learn using pictures in place of words.

A dyslexic’s elevated creativity also allows her to solve complicated problems in innovative ways. This disability often amplifies a person’s ability to manipulate three-dimensional objects in her mind and understand quickly how objects work together. Dyslexics often excel at engineering and mechanical vocations.

The heightened creativity of a dyslexic also allows him or her to see connections between ideas that a person who does not have this disability might miss. A dyslexic’s mind often works by filtering through large volumes of information and quickly picking out key points. As a result, one of the most novel benefits of dyslexia is that the mind then works to make connections and inferences between the ideas to aid in comprehension. In the end, a dyslexic may make new associations between ideas.

Another of the many benefits of dyslexia is the ability to perform many complicated tasks all at one time. A person with dyslexia eventually learns to read, but his reading style often differs from someone who does not have dyslexia. A person with dyslexia will often read by scanning all over the text, pulling out key words or phrases and inferring meaning from these parts. This reading style enhances a dyslexic’s ability to intensely focus for short periods of time and his ability to focus even with distractions around him, characteristics that promote success at multitasking.

One of the benefits of dyslexia that is often not noted is that dyslexics are often patient and empathetic. Children with dyslexia must work much harder to learn in school. Success and reward are often delayed for these these children. As a result, children with this disability are very patient and do not need immediate gratification. Their struggle also often fosters great empathy and concern for others.