Exams can’t measure the brilliance of a dyslexic mind

“Dyslexia was a blessing in disguise for myself and I think that dyslexia is a blessing in disguise for all dyslexics even if they don’t realise it when they may be struggling at school,” is how the billionaire Sir Richard Branson puts it. He says he wouldn’t have created the Virgin empire had he not been dyslexic.

He's not alone. The academic literature on dyslexia challenges old-fashioned but widely-held ideas. Traditionally, and quite wrongly, it’s been seen solely as a “disability”.

The idea of the “dyslexic advantage” is a complete one-eighty on that idea. It doesn’t deny the challenges, but highlights the huge benefits. This more accurate framing of dyslexia should inform the way everyone thinks about it, from teachers to parents to employers to dyslexic people themselves.

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Unfortunately, lots of dyslexic people struggle to see their brain wiring as an asset because they haven’t been properly supported to manage it and express their true capabilities.

Dyslexia is a learning difference that arises from the way a person’s brain works. It’s associated with difficulties reading and spelling, but also with creativity and a better than average capacity in areas like lateral thinking, critical thinking and analysis, problem solving and visualising. These are skills that businesses and other organisations are crying out for. Global business consultancy EY even comments that “dyslexic strengths align to core work-related skills and abilities of the future; dyslexia provides an opportunity for organisations to capture a unique set of skills to bridge the skills gap.” Working with the charity Made By Dyslexia, Linked In has listed “dyslexic thinking” as a skill people can highlight on their profile and many thousands have done so.

Dyslexics are well represented in the ranks of high achievers. They include director Steven Spielberg, chef Jamie Oliver, singers Florence Welch and Robbie Williams, entrepreneurs Sir Alan Sugar and Steve Jobs, actors Jennifer Aniston and Keira Knightly, astronomer Maggie Aderin-Pocock, architect Richard Rogers, and boxer Muhammad Ali. There is good reason to suspect that Albert Einstein and even Leonardo da Vinci had dyslexia.

It’s not that dyslexic people can excel at things in spite of their dyslexia; they excel because of it, since alongside the difficulties are those remarkable strengths.

More people are shouting about this, in frustration at the persistence of outmoded ideas and an education system that wasn’t designed to work for dyslexic children. These kids often struggle with exams requiring them to memorise facts and reproduce learned techniques. Exam results day in August is not always a happy moment for dyslexic teenagers.

The latest statistics from the Scottish Government on exam attainment at school suggests there could be a significant problem here. Dyslexia has nothing to do with raw intelligence, but the statistics show dyslexic children are performing less well in exams than their non-dyslexic peers, including children with other additional support needs (ASN) like autism and attention deficit disorder.

Last year, for instance, 77.8 per cent of children with no ASN got A to C grades at Higher. Among children with ASN, that dropped to 71 per cent.

Among children with dyslexia specifically, the figure fell further to 70.3 per cent.

A similar trend was seen for Advanced Highers, where 77.8 per cent of pupils with no ASN got A to C grades, 75.7 per cent of children with a range of ASN, but only 73 per cent of pupils with dyslexia.

It shouldn’t be like this. Dyslexia Scotland’s chief executive Cathy Magee says: “This data shows that dyslexic young people attain significantly less well than their peers with no, or other, additional support needs. This is very concerning, especially as the difficulties associated with dyslexia often do not reflect an individual’s cognitive abilities and are not typical of performance in other areas.

“With early identification, appropriate intervention and the right support, learners with dyslexia should be able to perform as well in exams as their peers.”

Dyslexic children extra time in exams, and using coloured overlays, spell checkers and dictation software, are well known ways of helping them. But Dyslexia Scotland says schools should also offer digital exams, involve learners and their parents in identifying what works and what doesn’t, develop accessible learning resources and flexible assessment methods, and make sure all staff have ongoing professional development.

Dyslexia hasn't stopped Richard Branson having outstanding success (Image: PA)

Some teachers are passionate about helping children with additional needs, and some head teachers see it as a top priority, but there’s a lack of consistency. Unbelievably, trainee teachers are not guaranteed to get training in dyslexia. Even though between 10 and 20 per cent of children have it - at least three in a typical class - it’s still possible for people to leave teacher training college without having been taught about dyslexia.

Add to that a chronic shortage of ASN specialists in schools. Children with dyslexia should be identified as soon as possible, but many are waiting years for an assessment. Support is supposed to be given as soon as dyslexia is suspected, but the assessment allows for a specialist teacher to look closely at the individual child’s skills and challenges, and give a definitive view.

The ongoing shortage of specialist ASN teachers in Scottish schools – 392 have been lost since 2013, according to analysis by the Scottish Children’s Services Coalition – is a glaring problem. Specialist teacher numbers have fallen while the number of children with ASN has risen. Teachers report being overwhelmed by the level of need, with nearly 37 per cent of pupils now identified as having an ASN.

It’s clear that many more support for learning staff are required.

It’s clear there should be much more consistent and thorough teacher training in dyslexia.

And it’s clear that a fundamental change is needed in the way that dyslexia is discussed, so its upsides are recognised alongside the difficulties.

Out of 800,000 Scottish school pupils, 80-160,000 have dyslexia. They are the workforce of tomorrow. It’s up to schools and employers to adapt to them, not the other way round.