Testing shows that people with dyslexia are no more or less intelligent than the population at large. Having dyslexia makes reading, and sometimes other skills, more difficult to acquire, but having dyslexia is not necessarily a barrier to success. In fact, many individuals with dyslexia have not only been successful, they have changed the world. Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Pablo Picasso all struggled with dyslexia.
Research has shown that wiring in the brains of people with dyslexia is different, and many believe that this different wiring of the brain causes people with dyslexia to see problems in different ways that can support innovation and success. Whether or not dyslexia is a gift, many individuals with dyslexia are living highly successful lives.
This video from Dyslexic Advantage illustrates this point beautifully:
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Clearly dyslexia is no barrier to success. Here are just a few examples of men and women with dyslexia who are at the top of their professions.
Business
Ingvar Kamprad, Founder of IKEA
Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Enterprises
John T. Chambers, CEO, Cisco Systems
Charles Schwab, American businessman and investor and the founder of the Charles Schwab Corporation.
Medical
Ben Carson, M.D., Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery, Johns Hopkins University
Brooks Edwards, M.D., Medical Director, Cardiac Transplantation, The Mayo Clinic
Mark Batshaw, M.D., Chief Academic Officer and Professor of Pediatrics, Children’s National Medical Center
Delos “Toby” Cosgrove, M.D., cardio- thoracic surgeon and President and CEO of the Cleveland Clinic
Blake Charlton, M.D., physician and novelist and essayist
Karen Santucci, M.D., Medical Director, Pediatric Emergency Medicine, Yale School of Medicine
Entertainment
Stephen Spielberg, Director
Channing Tatum, Actor
Jennifer Aniston, Actor
Orlando Bloom, Dyslexia
Billy Bob Thornton, Writer, Director and Actor
Whoopi Goldberg, Academy Award winning actress
Keira Knightley, actress
Jamie Oliver, Chef
Jay Leno, TV entertainer
Henry Winkler, actor and writer
Noel Gallagher, Singer, Song Writer
Sports
Tie Domi, hockey player
Justin Wilson, IndyCar Driver
Sir John Young “Jackie” Stewart, award winning race driver
Legal
David Boies, litigator in a number of landmark Supreme Court cases including Gore v. Bush and the decision on gay marriage.
Rafael Galvin, award-winning practitioner of corporate law
Bonnie Patton, leading malpractice litigator
Politics
Dan Malloy, Governor of Connecticut
Gavin Newsom, Lt. Governor of California
James Carville, campaign consultant and television commentator
Science
Florence Haseltine, M.D., Ph.D., Director, NIH Center for Population Research
Steven M. Stanley, Ph.D., paleobiologist
Carol Greider, biologist and winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine
Literature
Richard Ford, novelist, short story writer and Pulitzer Prize winner
John Irving, novelist and author of The World According to Garp
Wendy Wasserstein, Pulitzer Prize winning playwright
Philip Schultz, Pulitzer Prize winning poet
Photography, Art & Architecture
Robert Rauschenberg, painter and graphic artist
Richard Avedon, fashion and portrait photographer
Richard Rogers, internationally renowned architect
Willard Wigan, microscopic artist
Adventure & Exploration
Ann Bancroft
Jack Horner