so much ignorance... (Score 1)

First, a thought. If something affects 20% of the population, it's not a disability, it's a neurodiversity.

Second, the problem with dyslexia in this country is the ignorance and lack of education and training around it. My daughter is severely dyslexic, was unable to distinguish bdpq until 4th grade. The local public school was garbage, their sped teacher was literally making up curriculum because the school lacked training and curriculum. My daughter was on a path to being illiterate. We caught it early, and 4 years of a private school at $25,000 per year, she's now reading nearly as well as her peers. Why you ask? Orton-Gillingham curriculum, the earlier the better. See, we've known how to educate dyslexics to read as well as neurotypical peers since the 30's, they just need an explicit curriculum. Neurotypical people also benefit from O-G curriculum, explicit curriculum in reading benefits everyone. But, it's expensive, requiring specialized training for teachers and the purchase of a science based, peer reviewed, O-G curriculum. Schools in this country are cheap and lazy, it's easier to ignore 20% failing to learn to read and let them become dropouts and incarcerate them later. "Lucy Caulkins" is cheap, doesn't require any teacher training, and is complete garbage that contradicts everything we know about teaching kids to read, so schools across the country use it.

Also, why does dyslexia exist? Well, for one thing, pick up a 3d object, look at it from different angles. Amazing, no matter what position you hold it it's the same object. Now look at the letters b d p q. It's the same freaking shape, just flipped and inverted. So, someones brain that is optimized to recognize the same shape in different orientations sees them all as the same shape!!! My daughter only learned how to distinguish them by drawing it in the air with her finger whenever she ran across one, and tying the muscle memory of drawing it back to knowledge about the letter, and then choosing to put the right letter in the word to sound it out. It took years of daily repetition, at a a private school using an orton-gillingham curriculum, for her to get the necessary repetition and other instruction to be able to do that...

Further, i'm going to blow many of your minds. "Twice Exceptional". My daughter is both dyslexic and has an IQ of 140. My oldest has an IQ of 138 and has dysgraphia, dyscalculia, and ASD. My youngest has an IQ of 145, is mildly dyslexic and likely has dysgraphia. Yes, they are all super freaking smart. Not surprising honestly, since i graduated with honors from a top 10 university with a degree in computer engineering, and I myself have ASD, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia. My wife is dyslexic and decided to pursue a masters in education because of her personal challenges learning to read and our children's challenges learning to read.

So, the key to dyslexia is to get our countries collective heads out of our asses, stop the stigma, and actually train our teachers and follow the established science on how to teach kids to read. The really sad part is that with all of the bad information and stigma, most affected by Dyslexia don't even known the truth, that had they had proper instruction when they were young, their dyslexia would have had little to no impact on their lives.