Positive Dyslexia Act 4

Positive Dyslexia – Follow your Star!

Act 4: Failing to Learn, Learning to Fail


By Roderick Nicolson, Professor of Psychology and renowned dyslexia expert


Positive Dyslexia aims to transform the image of dyslexia and the opportunities for dyslexic people at home, at school, at work and in society by focusing on the strengths of dyslexia and how dyslexic people can develop and celebrate their own strengths. 


This 'ShowBook' - created by the founder of Positive Dyslexia – takes you all the way on the ‘Positive Dyslexia Journey’ from research to practice for all, young and old. It is unique and transformative.


It is unlike any other book, and is called a ShowBook because it is a show and a book, designed for dyslexic users, talking you through all the pages and all the actions.


This Act throws light on why dyslexic children fail to learn to read. Delayed Neural Commitment means that skills and neural circuits for executive function are built more slowly, leading to a danger of repeated failure, learned helplessness and ‘mental abscesses’ that prevent learning in a reading situation - and may generalize to school in general. ‘Forced Learning’ may therefore create a learning disability. It provides a novel framework for understanding why dyslexic children often fail to learn at school, and why this is entirely preventable.