Post #15 Learning Disabilities Why? Germinated Beliefs
…If suffering comes from perception, as the Buddhists say, then we must look to find the filters (stories) that hold our expectations about the world, for we see what we expect to see. Our expectations tell us where to direct our attention…. Our expectations arise from the stories we repeat to ourselves, the stories that formed our beliefs.
Identify a belief, and we should be able to find stories that exemplify that belief.[i]
These beliefs are germinated (to continue the metaphor) at times in soil that celebrates difference and encourages healthy growth. Other settings or soil denigrate the difference, still seeing a learning difference as abnormal. Either germination develops into lives, ways of being in their world. There’s a word I recently came across for what you believe about how to belong, how to be in your world – ‘introjection’. Consciously or not, we soak up other’s beliefs about ourselves. The messages we pick up from our parents, friends, educators take hold within to become our beliefs about ourselves.[ii]
Let me interject a bit here though. I have read research which pretty much categorically states that introjects become hardwired, embodied, permanent.[iii]. I don’t know what to think of that for I have also read a great deal about our capacity as humans to change, to grow.
Jessica Berg’s son believed that he was beyond help. With good help he did “unlearn” this belief and in time found school “easier”.[iv]
Carol Dweck, a social psychology researcher, uses two different terms: ‘fixed mindset’ and ‘flexible mindset’ or ‘growth mindset’.[v]
…the way children think about their abilities or intelligence … can dictate to what extent they are able to overcome fears of failing and triumph through academic difficulties or other cognitive tasks.
Children who believe that intelligence and ability are malleable or flexible (able to change and grow) have far greater success in their lives… [they see] failure as a challenge to keep trying and … mistakes as a part of … learning.
Children with a fixed orientation tend to believe that people’s intelligence or ability is limited to what they are born with, for example, believing they are “not good at math”. This fixed mindset lends itself to giving up when encountering difficulties.[vi]
Ed Latimore, from his personal experience as well as study, adds this observation: It doesn’t matter which mindset is a more accurate representation of reality. The only thing that matters is which one you believe to be true, because that belief will affect your approach to life’s challenges.[vii]R C
Can it be that some of the tragic stories we so often read in news reports are of lives holding beliefs germinated/absorbed from the definitions of ‘abnormal’ stamped on them by the society they live in? But what about those stamped ‘abnormal’ who found their way to more hopeful perspectives?
Following are comments taken from observers of people living with learning differences and others are comments by neurodiverse people themselves about the beliefs that have germinated in their lives. It strikes me that, though I have read many accounts of neurodiverse people who have dark stories, in the following stories in environments hardly conducive to a ‘flexible’ mindsets, these are people who have found a way to more successfully handle their challenges.
Living in a learning environment that taught him he was different from other kids without offering a navigator through the differences, to help him adapt or compensate, Philip Schultz wrote: …Perhaps it is necessary to suffer greatly before we can reach this place of recognition and sensitivity, and appreciate what is special and worthwhile about us and behave accordingly.[viii]
Andrew Solomon, in his book, Far From The Tree: parents, children and the search for identity, in telling stories of neurodiversity, notes that while we as a society should do all we can to support differences, we cannot ignore that … Many [of those Solomon interviewed] …said they would never exchange their experiences for any other life. Having a severe challenge intensifies life for both children and parents. The lows are also most always very low; the highs are sometimes very high… Some people think that without suffering, the world would be boring. …life is enriched by difficulty. …[ix]
And of course, there are many memoirs and other accounts of people who took on awe-inspiring challenges, in all realms of human endeavor.[x]
As the Artemis II Space Mission just completed a trip around the moon, I read that the head of NASA is a high school drop out!
Phil Hanley believes School had prepared me for struggle. I was programmed to expect adversity and to assume life would be hard. [Yet]… Kids need to know that, with a slight change of parameters, dyslexia has been proven to be a positive. If I could pick a standard brain or a unique one, I would pick mine. Every time…. [However] I needed time for my belief in myself to catch up to my ability.
Today I continue to deal with dyslexia. But it’s no longer a battle. I’ve made peace. I work around it… I no longer slither and hide…. Now Philip Hanley tells current students that dyslexia is not a curse… The path to moving from a fixed mindset according to Hanley comes when kids who struggle are shown a light at the end of the tunnel. Otherwise, their current misery will seem everlasting.[xi]
We can hear in some of these back and forths a bit of Little Britain’s Vicky excusing herself with “Yeh but, no but”. Essential paradoxes.
Yeh but, the experiences of life with an LD, may be like a cart an individual must pull alongside through a life journey.
No but, the cart may not always ultimately be seen as a burden. To come back to the soil germinating beliefs which lead to stories of life experiences, when an LDer is offered little hope or healthy support, too often the story of a life journey is tragic. When the story speaks of helpful perspectives and support from others, it becomes noticeable, as the story progresses from detailing the struggle and the negative beliefs, that a change in perspective has begun. The LDer comes to a place of acceptance and ever-growing strength.
You can hear the paradox in Emil Sands’ Yeh but, No but. He has cerebral palsy and struggles with shame about his body. His beliefs are evolving to at least a compromise he is choosing to live with… I am still grappling with the ways I have been made to feel that my body does not belong – and with the conviction that it is easier for everyone that I be a failing normal rather than a normal disabled. I know more than most that difference must be celebrated, and that each time I hide, the shame builds – for me, for others like me…I am not sure I want to hide anymore. I’d rather embrace my disability than fear its fallout. But it would be a lie to say I love every part of my body.[xii]
Yeh but, at 21, worn out with the burden of his LD, Yasik said, “I never have to learn again.” No but, as an adult, Yasik, with ever-growing strength, ‘psyched himself up’ enough to complete a training course that led to a satisfying job. He has found ways to work around a learning disability or to work with it. Although he is still sometimes reluctant to meet the expectations of conversation, rather than letting others speak for him, he tries harder to express himself in conversation.
Footnotes
[i] Mehl-Madrona, Lewis, M.D., Ph.D. with Barbara Mainguy, M.A. Remapping Your Mind: the neuroscience of self-transformation through story Bear & Company, 2015, 84-85
[ii] Bond, A.J. Discomfortable: what is shame and how can we break its hold? Penguin Random House, 2021, 38, 44, 205
Perry, Bruce, M.D., Ph.D. and Oprah Winfrey What happened to you: conversations on trauma, resilience, and healing Flatiron Books: An Oprah Book, 2021, 221-222
Haidt, Jonathan. The Anxious Generation: how the great rewiring of childhood is causing an epidemic of mental illness Penguin Press, 2024, 70-71
[iii] Bond, A.J. Discomfortable: what is shame and how can we break its hold? Penguin Random House, 2021, 38, 44, 205
[iv] Berg, Jessica. “My teen couldn’t read for years, a dyslexia diagnosis changed everything”
https://www.businessinsider.com/my-teen-couldnt-read-for-years-dyslexia-diagnosis-changed-everything-2026-1 Jan 2, 2026
[v] Bosco-Ruggiero, Stephanie, MA, Gloria Russo Wassell, MS, LMHC, and Victor Groza, PhD adopting older children: a practical guide to adopting and parenting children over age four New Horizon Press, 2014, 182 – 190
[vi] Armstrong, Thomas, PhD The Power of Diversity: unleashing the advantages of your neurodivergent brain, 2nd ed. balance, 2025, 100
[vii]Latimore, Ed Hard Lessons from, the Hurt Business: boxing and the art of the life Portfolio/Penguin, 2025, 72-73
[viii] Schultz, Philip My Dyslexia WW Norton, 2012, 37, 50-51, 116
[ix] Solomon, Andrew. Far From The Tree: parents, children and the search for identity Scribner, 2013, 15
[x] Gobbo, Ken. “Dyslexia and Creativity: The Education and Work of Robert Rauschenberg” Landmark College Vol. 30 No. 3/4 (2010): Disability and/in Time || General Issue /
[xi] Hanley, Phil. Spellbound: my life as a dyslexic wordsmith Henry Holt and Company, 2025, 194, 223, 238, 240, 241, 243
Haddish, Tiffany The Last Black Unicorn Gallery Books, 2017, 6, 7
Wilcox, Rebecca Bea’s wrong: we shouldn’t wish dyslexia on anyone: As Princess Beatrice claims dyslexia is a ‘gift’, TV presenter REBECCA WILCOX says…Daily Mail; London (UK) [London (UK)]. 19 Aug 2021: 42.
[xii] Sands, Emil. The Atlantic March, 2023, 63
Silberman, Steve Neurotribes: the legacy of autism and the future of neurodiversity Avery, 2016, 437, 446, 454
