Unique calling

People with dyslexia have often been misunderstood. There are now centers in China aimed at creating public awareness and giving training courses to this group of people, Xu Lin finds out.

Dyslexic children cannot be cured with medicine or surgery. Instead, they can only be helped with special education. Photos provided to China Daily

Wu Xiping, an office worker from Beijing, had been concerned about her 11-year-old son's bad writing until two years ago when she accidentally found out the boy has dyslexia. It is a terminology she has never heard before, neither have many other Chinese parents.

"I felt relieved the moment I found out. At least I know how to help him so that he could have fewer difficulties in the future," she says.

Many people with dyslexia have difficulties reading, writing and spelling. With a neurological origin, dyslexia is not correlated with IQ. There are famous and successful people with dyslexia, such as Leonardo da Vinci and Tom Cruise.

According to the International Dyslexia Association in the United States, about 15 to 20 percent of the population has some symptoms of dyslexia, including slow or inaccurate reading, or mixing up similar words. Anatomical and brain imagery studies show differences in the way those with dyslexia develop and function.

Since Wu's son started primary school, he was slow in his homework and his writing was huge and illegible. The teacher thought he had a lackadaisical attitude and often punished him by asking him to rewrite. As a result, he always slept late.

By chance, Wu saw a media report about dyslexia, and decided to send her son for a test. After the result confirmed her son's problem, she told her son's teacher, who had no idea what dyslexia was.