Dyslexia as a Cultural Signal

Dyslexia as a Cultural Signal When I went to see Ronald Davis in 1983 in his dyslexia institute near San Francisco, I had already spent a year working 40 hours a week with two severely handicapped dyslexics. I knew that dyslexia can be a very complex phenomenon that is not limited to a learning disability in the area of reading and writing but can include many other symptoms, and especially also many positive qualities. When Ron told me about the amazing multi-day process in which he broke through to a fundamental understanding of his own lifelong disability and to the complete overcoming of it, I immediately saw that he had not only made groundbreaking discoveries in the field of dyslexia as a disability, but that his findings went far beyond their usefulness for the work with dyslexics. As I told him this he replied, "Yes, I have discovered only the tip of the iceberg. Others will bring further parts of the iceberg to light in due course." This book serves to report those parts of the iceberg that have been uncovered in the more than three decades of my work with dyslexics, and that can be of use for those who live or work with dyslexics. And it will hopefully also instill in the dyslexics themselves the positive self-image that they deserve and which society is still largely denying them. Over and above that the book is intended to show from the beginning and from chapter to chapter more and more that dyslexia is not only a "signal of a talent" as the German title of the book says but also a "cultural signal" that reveals facts that are of significance for the worldwide human culture in general.