New campaign embraces dyslexic people's talents Wednesday, January 6, 2010 - 16:56

By helping children with learning difficulties to feel confident about their individual skills and abilities, First News My Way! campaign - backed by dyslexic actor Henry Winkler - will create self-assured adults in both work and learning settings.

NIACE is currently supporting libraries to become dyslexia-friendly for all the family, through a piece of work commissioned by the The Society of Chief Librarians. NIACE interviewed dyslexic library-users who spoke about the emotions they feel in relation to how their dyslexia is perceived and misunderstood. The film will be used as part of a dyslexia-awareness course for librarians.

NIACE is also carrying out research interviews with civil servants affected by dyslexia for the FDA Union. Among other things the interviews underline the social and emotional impact of dyslexia on adults.

Rachel Davies, NIACE Programme Director, said:

"We really welcome the First News My Way! campaign. In our work supporting adults with dyslexia we see time and time again that the difficult experiences they had as children, and particularly at school, have stayed with them into adult life. Sometimes the way that they felt about themselves and their dyslexia was as much of a barrier to their learning as an adult, as a difficulty with spelling or reading."

"But adults with dyslexia are successful in many fields, and recent research is helping us to understand why successful entrepreneurs, for example, are much more likely to experience dyslexia than the rest of the population. Henry Winkler is right when he says that people with learning differences, like dyslexia, have many gifts, skills and talents. If children can feel confident about their skills and abilities then they can bring that confidence to their adult lives, and particularly to adult learning."