A & Q...

I have decided to remove this post of jokes about Dyslexia. I feel it was in bad taste...

Common Myths about Dyslexia

* Dyslexia is rare: Dyslexia touch about 23% of the population.


* Dyslexics will not succeed in life: A great majority of dyslexics have invented or done something great for humanity.


* Dyslexia will prevent your child from succeeding: Your child should succeed not despite dyslexia but because of it.


* Dyslexia: Why the Confusion? Dyslexics are learning disabled: Dyslexics can also be learning disabled but usually they only become learning disabled because of ineffective teaching.


* It is difficult to diagnose: It is easy once we know what we are looking for.


* Reading difficulties disappears with age: Not if it’s dyslexia.


* Repeating a school grade can remove dyslexia: To do more of the same that made you fail in the first place.


* Dyslexia is limited to those who reverse letters or numbers: Only 10% of dyslexics reverses letters.


* Dyslexia is caused by parents who do not read to their children: Some parents read often to their children, some are writers, own book shops, are translators…


* Dyslexia cannot be diagnosed until a child is in third-grade: It should be diagnosed in kindergarten


* Only a psychologist can assess individuals with Dyslexia: Only if he has received training in the assessment of people with dyslexia


Extract of: BRAZEAU-WARD, Louise, «I'm confused, is it dyslexia or is it learning dissability?», Canadian Dyslexia Centre, 2003.

Famous People with Dyslexia ~ Authors

Agatha Christie (1890 – 1976), was an English crime fiction writer. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but is remembered for her 66 mystery novels. Her work with mystery novels, particularly featuring detectives Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple, have given her the title the 'Queen of Crime' and made her one of the most important and innovative writers in the development of the mystery novel. Christie has been called - by the Guinness Book of World Records, among others - the best-selling writer of books of all time, and the best-selling writer of any kind second to William Shakespeare.
An estimated one billion copies of her novels have been sold in English, and another billion in 103 other languages. As an example of her broad appeal, she is the all-time best-selling author in France, with over 40 million copies sold in French (as of 2003) versus 22 million for Emile Zola, the nearest contender. In 1955, Christie was the first recipient of the Mystery Writers of America's highest honor, the Grand Master Award, and in the same year, Witness for the Prosecution was given an Edgar Award by the MWA, for Best Play.

Edgar Allan Poe (1809 – 1849) was an American poet, short story writer, editor, critic and one of the leaders of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of the macabre, Poe was one of the early American practitioners of the short story and a progenitor of detective fiction and crime fiction. He is also credited with contributing to the emergent science fiction genre.

Ernest Miller Hemingway (1899 – 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His distinctive writing style is characterized by economy and understatement and had a significant influence on the development of twentieth century fiction writing. Hemingway's protagonists are typically stoics, men who must show "grace under pressure." Many of his works are considered classics in the canon of American literature. Hemingway, nicknamed "Papa," was part of the 1920s expatriate community in Paris, as described in his memoir A Moveable Feast, and was known as part of "the Lost Generation," a name he popularized. He led a turbulent social life, was married four times, and allegedly had various romantic relationships during his lifetime. Hemingway received the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 for The Old Man and the Sea. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.

Jules Verne (1828 – 1905) was a French author and a pioneer of the science-fiction genre best known for novels such as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea (1870), Journey To The Center Of The Earth (1864), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873). Verne was noted for writing about space, air, and underwater travel before air travel and submarines were actually invented, and before practical means of space travel had been devised. He is the third most translated author in the world, according to the Index Translationum statistics. Some of his books have been made into films. Verne, along with Hugo Gernsback and H. G. Wells, is often popularly referred to as the "Father of Science Fiction"

Famous People with Dyslexia ~ Artists

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) was a German composer. He is generally regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of music, and was the predominant figure in the transitional period between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western classical music. His reputation and genius have inspired — and in many cases intimidated — ensuing generations of composers, musicians, and audiences. While primarily known today as a composer, he was also a celebrated pianist and conductor, and an accomplished violinist. Born in Bonn, Germany, he moved to Vienna, Austria, in his early twenties, and settled there, studying with Joseph Haydn and quickly gaining a reputation as a virtuoso pianist.
In his late twenties he began to lose his hearing gradually, and yet he continued to produce notable masterpieces throughout his life, even when his deafness was almost total. Beethoven was one of the first composers who worked as a freelance — arranging subscription concerts, selling his compositions to publishers, and gaining financial support from a number of wealthy patrons — rather than being permanently employed by the church or by an aristocratic court.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452 –1519) was an Italian polymath: architect, anatomist, sculptor, engineer, inventor, mathematician, musician, scientist, and painter. He has been described as the archetype of the "Renaissance man", a man infinitely curious and equally inventive. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time, and perhaps the most intelligent and capable man to ever have lived.
Leonardo is famous for his realistic paintings, such as the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, as well as for influential drawings such as the Vitruvian Man. He conceived ideas vastly ahead of his own time, notably conceptually inventing a helicopter, a tank, the use of concentrated solar power, a calculator, a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics, the double hull, and many others. In addition, he greatly advanced the state of knowledge in the fields of anatomy, astronomy, civil engineering, optics, and the study of water (hydrodynamics).

Mozart (1756 – 1791) was a prolific and influential composer in the Classical era. His output of more than six hundred compositions includes works widely acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music. Mozart is among the most enduringly popular of European composers, and many of his works are part of the standard concert repertoire. He is generally considered to be one of the greatest composers of classical music.

Pablo Ruiz Picasso (1881 - 1973) was a Spanish painter and sculptor, one of the most recognized figures in 20th century art, he is best known as the co-founder, along with Georges Braque, of cubism. It has been estimated that Picasso produced about 13,500 paintings or designs, 100,000 prints or engravings, 34,000 book illustrations and 300 sculptures or ceramics.

Vincent van Gogh (1853 – 1890) was a Dutch draughtsman and painter, classified as a Post-Impressionist. His paintings and drawings include some of the world's best known, most popular and most expensive pieces. He did not embark upon a career as an artist until 1880, at the age of 27. Initially he worked in sombre colours, until an encounter in Paris with Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism accelerated his artistic development. He produced all of his more than 2,000 works, including around 900 paintings and 1100 drawings or sketches, during the last ten years of his life. Most of his best-known works were produced in the final two years of his life, and in the two months before his death he painted 90 pictures.

Famous People with Dyslexia ~ Politicians

Benjamin Franklin (1706 – 1790) was one of the most well-known Founding Fathers of the United States. He was a leading author, politician, printer, scientist, philosopher, publisher, inventor, civic activist, and diplomat. As a scientist he was a major figure in the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. As a political writer and activist he, more than anyone, invented the idea of an American nation, and as a diplomat during the American Revolution, he secured the French alliance that made independence possible. Franklin was noted for his curiosity, his writings (popular, political and scientific), and his diversity of interests. His writings are proverbial for being wise and scintillating to this day. As a leader of the Enlightenment, he gained the recognition of scientists and intellectuals across Europe.

John F. Kennedy (1917 – 1963), was the 35th President of the United States. He served from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. His leadership during the USS PT-109 incident during the Second World War in the South Pacific was a turning point in his life. Kennedy represented Massachusetts from 1947 to 1960, first as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and then in the U.S. Senate. He was elected President in 1960 in one of the closest elections in American history. He is the only Roman Catholic to be elected President of the United States. Major events during his presidency include the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the building of the Berlin Wall, the Space Race, early events of the Vietnam War and the American Civil Rights Movement. John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas.

Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller (July 8, 1908 – January 26, 1979) was an American Vice President, governor of New York State, philanthropist and businessman. A leader of the liberal wing of the Republican Party, he was Governor of New York from 1959 to 1973, where he launched many construction and modernization projects. Scion of one of the world's richest and best known families, he failed repeatedly in his attempts to become president, but he was appointed Vice President of the United States of America in 1974. He served from 1974 to 1977, and did not join the 1976 GOP national ticket with President Gerald Ford. He retired from politics when his term as Vice President was over.

Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965) was an English statesman, soldier, and author, best known as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. Well-known as an orator, strategist, and politician, Churchill was one of the most important leaders in modern British and world history. He won the 1953 Nobel Prize in Literature for his many books on English and world history. Sir Winston Churchill was voted the greatest-ever Briton in the 2002 BBC poll the 100 Greatest Britons.

Famous People with Dyslexia ~ Scientists

Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist widely considered one of the greatest physicists of all time. While best known for the theory of relativity (and specifically mass-energy equivalence, E=mc2), he was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for his 1905 explanation of the photoelectric effect and "for his services to Theoretical Physics". He was known for many scientific investigations, among which were: his special theory of relativity which stemmed from an attempt to reconcile the laws of mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field, his general theory of relativity which extended the principle of relativity to include gravitation, relativistic cosmology, capillary action, critical opalescence, classical problems of statistical mechanics and problems in which they were merged with quantum theory, leading to an explanation of the Brownian movement of molecules; atomic transition probabilities, the probabilistic interpretation of quantum theory, the quantum theory of a monatomic gas, the thermal properties of light with a low radiation density which laid the foundation of the photon theory of light, the theory of radiation, including stimulated emission; the construction of a unified field theory, and the geometrization of physics.

Alexander Graham Bell (1847 – 1922) was a Scottish scientist and inventor who emigrated to Canada and later the United States. Today, Bell is widely considered as one of the foremost developers of the telephone, together with Antonio Meucci – inventor of the first telephone prototype – and Philipp Reis. In addition to Bell's work in telecommunications technology, he was responsible for important advances in aviation and hydrofoil technology. Much of his later work was done in Canada.

Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642) was an Italian physicist, astronomer, and philosopher who is closely associated with the scientific revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope, a variety of astronomical observations, and effective support for Copernicanism. According to Stephen Hawking, Galileo probably contributed more to the creation of the modern natural sciences than anybody else. He is often referred to as the "father of modern astronomy," as the "father of modern physics", and as the "father of science". The work of Galileo is considered to be a significant break from that of Aristotle. The motion of uniformly accelerated objects, treated in nearly all high school and introductory college physics courses, was studied by Galileo as the subject of kinematics.

Thomas Alva Edison (1847 – 1931) was an American inventor and businessman who developed many devices which greatly influenced life worldwide into the 21st century. Dubbed "The Wizard of Menlo Park" by a newspaper reporter, he was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of mass production to the process of invention, and can therefore be credited with the creation of the first industrial research laboratory. Some of the inventions attributed to him were not completely original but amounted to improvements of earlier inventions or were actually created by numerous employees working under his direction. Nevertheless, Edison is considered one of the most prolific inventors in history, holding 1,097 U.S. patents in his name, as well as many patents in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. He lived to the age of 84.

Famous People with Dyslexia ~ Business People

William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American entrepreneur and the co-founder, chairman, former chief software architect, and former CEO of Microsoft, the world's largest software company. Forbes magazine's list of The World's Billionaires has ranked him as the richest person on earth for the last thirteen consecutive years, with a current net worth of approximately $53 billion. When family wealth is considered, his family ranks second behind the Walton family. Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. Since amassing his fortune, Gates has pursued a number of philanthropic endeavors, donating large amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000.

Nicholas Negroponte (born 1943) is an architect and computer scientist best known as the founder and Chairman Emeritus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab. He is the younger brother of John Negroponte, former United States Director of National Intelligence.

William R. Hewlett (1913 – 2001) was the co-founder, with David Packard, of the Hewlett-Packard Company (HP). Hewlett received his Bachelor's degree from Stanford University in 1934, an MS degree in EECS from MIT in 1936, and the degree of Electrical Engineer from Stanford in 1939. Hewlett attended classes taught by Fred Terman at Stanford and became acquainted with David Packard during his undergraduate work at Stanford. He and Packard began discussing forming a company in August of 1937, and formally incorporated Hewlett-Packard Company on January 1, 1939. In 1939, he also married Flora Lamson, and the couple eventually had five children: Eleanor, Walter, James, William and Mary. He was President of HP from 1964 to 1977, and served as CEO from 1968 to 1978, when he was succeeded by John A. Young. He remained chairman of the executive committee until 1983, and then served as vice chairman of the board until 1987. In 1995 he received the Lemelson-MIT Prize Lifetime Achievement Award.

Famous People with Dyslexia ~ Actors< Jack Nicholson (born April 22, 1937) is an iconic, three-time Academy Award and seven time Golden Globe winning American method actor known for his often dark-themed portrayals of neurotic characters. He has been nominated for an Academy Award 12 times (winning 3 of them), more than any other male actor, and second only to Meryl Streep (who has 13 nominations and 2 wins) in total nominations. He is tied with Walter Brennan for most wins by a male actor, and second to Katharine Hepburn for most acting wins overall (Hepburn had 4). He has also won seven Golden Globe Awards and he received a Kennedy Center Honors in 2001.

Robin Williams (born July 21, 1951) is an Academy Award-winning American actor and comedian. As an actor he has had starring roles on television, stage, and film. The majority of Williams' acting career has been in film, although he has given some memorable performances on stage as well (notably as Estragon in a production of Waiting for Godot). His first starring roles, Popeye (1980) and The World According to Garp (1982), were both considered flops, but with Good Morning, Vietnam (1987) Williams was nominated for an Academy Award and established a screen identity. Many of his roles have been comedies tinged with pathos, for example, The Birdcage, Mrs. Doubtfire.

Tom Cruise (born July 3, 1962) is a three-time Academy Award-nominated, Golden Globe Award-winning American actor and film producer. Counted as one of the most successful movie stars in Hollywood, he is the only actor to have six consecutive $100 million plus blockbusters on his resume. His first leading role in a blockbuster movie was 1983's Risky Business. From then on, he starred in many top films, becoming an iconic celebrity of Hollywood. Despite the recent scrutinizing media coverage of his personal life, mainly regarding his support of Scientology and his related criticism of psychiatry, he remains a star of worldwide renown.

*Canadian Dyslexia Association

Mandate: The mandate of the Canadian Dyslexia Association is to promote awareness of dyslexia in order to improve the quality of life of the estimated five million Canadians who have dyslexia.