Cognitive Development and Learning Disabilities

In this article psychologists speculate whether or not dyslexia can influence an eventually learning and understanding of a certain subject. They asked the question “do they achieve in spite of the disability or because of it?” Perhaps it should be considered that since children have difficulties learning the “normal” way, they use alternative methods of solving the problems causing resulting in cognitive success. Some consider that people suffering from dyslexia may develop a bigger network of meaning. When confronting a word, it is possible that they think of the word’s meaning resulting in a “rich associative network”.

I thought this article was interesting because I had never considered that someone suffering from a learning disability could develop an entirely different way of thinking due to his or her disability. Usually when you think about someone who is handicapped with a learning disability you automatically think of them as disadvantaged. However, this article proves that when suffering from a learning disability you can learn in a different way making your creativity stronger.

My only question surrounding this newly speculated phenomena, is how much does one need to learn in order for this? In order for one to indulge themselves in this high level of learning, they must first be skilled enough to read and decipher words to relate them to other things. How much training would one have to endure in order to understand?

This information would be useful to a cognitive perspective psychologist because they study psychology that is emphasizes by mental processes in perception, memory, language, problem-solving and other areas of behavior. Therefore, they would realize that dyslexic people use different methods of problem solving thus enhancing their knowledge. It is ironic that someone who suffers from dyslexia can benefit from his or her condition.