Dyslexia is great -I wouldn't be without it!

Catherine -grainy on my little phone camera, but still captivating

Yesterday I had the pleasure of speaking to Ausssi author and outspoken TV personality (most recently appearing in the ABCs Get Back to Where You Came From) Catherine Deveny who herself has dyslexia or, as she sees it, a different and dynamic way of thinking. 

Dyslexia (trouble with reading and especially with spelling) didn’t slow Catherine down much.  “I managed not to buy into the “You’re-not-trying” myth,” she said. -Her advice for fellow dyslexics.  -“Authority isn’t truth and remembering things isn’t intelligence.” Did you have any dark moments in school?” someone asked.  “No. I’m a pathological optimist,” Catherine said, waving her iPhone. “I remember a teacher saying to me, “You know Catherine, you won’t be able to carry around some kind of magic dictionary that spells for you and gives you your daily schedule…”  

-Catherine likes the app. Speak It. “It lets me record my thoughts and listen to them over and over while I’m doing other things (I like to walk and listen.  You get a kind of motor learning happening so you soak up the information better).  I also use Audio Note which lets me find my place in a recording and add notes.”

 “Dyslexic thinking isn’t linear,” Catherine told me.  “It’s creative and dynamic.  -If you walked into my kitchen at any given time you’d likely find me simultaneously stirring a pot of pasta sauce, answering two or three phone calls and cleaning the shelves, with every cupboard door swinging wide open.”

I was so glad to have met Catherine Deveny -she's a reminder of how dyslexia is just one facet of a person, and maybe a beneficial one they wouldn't part with.

For more: Dyslexics may take a different route but we get there in the end