Positive Dyslexia: Find and Follow your Star!
What's the big idea?
Few dyslexic people achieve their true potential, and many are scarred by their school experiences. The Positive Dyslexia movement turns the 'Dyslexia as Disability' stereotype on its head. It starts with strengths and guides dyslexic people to discover, develop and live their strengths. This book provides the narrative, the science and the tools for you to make a difference!
What's in the book?
It provides a route-map for the 'Positive Dyslexia Journey'. The journey starts with a 'positive assessment' of strengths rather than weaknesses, then positive ambitions for how you want to succeed, then positive acceleration toward these goals, then job crafting and career management to ensure you satisfy your career goals and motivations. The author follows the journey, establishing the science and the route-map for each stage, and concludes with three Success chapters covering Succeeding in School, Succeeding in Work, and Succeeding in Society.
What's the message?
Dyslexic individuals have their own personal best strengths - the Dyslexia Decathlon - and these can be honed. Delayed neural commitment slows habit development - giving more scope to combine skills but more risk that premature formal teaching disables school learning. To succeed in the 21st century all organizations need to have an appropriate mix of talents - Talent Diversity. The Dyslexia Decathlon skills comprise the key Unconventional Talents. So, for society, for organizations and for individuals, dyslexia is part of the solution rather than part of the problem - the Positive Dyslexia story!
Is it an easy read?
This is a challenging book! It challenges the 'Dyslexia as Disability' stereotype. State-of-the-art research is presented in five domains – dyslexia, positive psychology, education, cognitive neuroscience, and work science – to finally make sense of dyslexia.
But, yes, it is an easy read. It's written for dyslexic readers and designed around the strengths of dyslexia – a big picture approach, a strong narrative following the dyslexia journey, and a highly visual representation. A visual snapshot of each page is shown, so you can skim, follow the argument, and find key passages with ease. There are 328 figures in 150 pages!
What’s different?
Positive Dyslexia is unique in message and medium.
Ten innovations will transform the field: Positive Dyslexia. The Positive Dyslexia Journey, The Dyslexia Skills Decathlon. Delayed Neural Commitment. Mental Abscesses. Learning to Fail. The Dyslexia Work Strengths Finder. Job Crafting for Dyslexia. 21st Century Strengths and the Decathlon. Talent Diversity.
This is the first ever book based around the strengths of dyslexia - big picture, narrative, and visualization - while maintaining the established book strengths of chapters, sections, references, glossary and index.
Who is it for?
The book is designed primarily for dyslexic individuals, their families and friends. But it is really about 'Positive Life'. Whoever you are, whatever you do, whatever your stage in life, Positive Dyslexia will interest, excite, and challenge you. It will certainly make you think!
About the author
Rod Nicolson is Professor of Psychology at the University of Sheffield, with over 100 articles published, on dyslexia, education, neuroscience and work psychology. He has been a leading UK dyslexia researcher for 25 years and co-authored with Angela Fawcett three of the major theories of the cause of dyslexia, and three leading screening tests for dyslexia. He is a passionate and coherent speaker and advocate for dyslexia.
