I had an interesting discussion with Christian (now 18) recently.
When he was 8 he was adopted by a Tasmanian Teddy Dragon called Smidgen Smollett Smutts and when he was 9 or 10 he wrote about them (see http://giftedresources.org/jo/teddydragons.htm)
At the time he told me that Teddy Dragons (TDs) have a tonal language with only one word in it – MEEP – but that dyslexic TDs say MEEP but spell it EPME, EMPE or PEEM.
I have been thinking about dyslexia quite a bit recently because of the OGTOC Online Conference with Drs Brock & Fernette Eide and also because of discussions with two Education Consultants who work with Gifted Learning Disabled (or 2e Twice Exceptional) children.
As I was walking home from the shop I was considering the lot of dyslexic TDs. Christian had said that singing was an important way for TDs to learn their tonal language and I was thinking that although there could be a large number of possibilities relating to the tones; the language was necessarily limited by having only one word.
TDs are expected to find one new piece of knowledge or combine existing knowledge in a new way to increase their communal knowledge and to receive a personal reward of a truck full of chocolate.
I wondered if the dyslexic TDs represented the next evolutionary step forward as they would be the ones to introduce new words to the language. I wondered whether they would be appreciated and hailed as innovators or just declared WRONG and ignored.
When I asked Christian about this he laughed and said ” Really, Mum! That was just a joke! TDs don’t have a written language. They only have a tonal one. How can you be dyslexic in a non-written language? That was the joke!”
Ok, call me slow – it only took me 8 years to get my son’s joke!
Gifted Resources 