Question: why and what causes dyslexya

Matthew Kitching answered on 16 Nov 2016:

Hi 🙂

thanks for the question! I don’t think anyone has a definitive answer yet – but i can try and give you some of the things that people think are involved?

So theres been a lot of work by doctors and researches to try and pin down exactly what causes dyslexia. In some people with dyslexia, there are differences in their brains to people who aren’t dyslexic (mainly in the bit of the brain that controls language) – some studies show this might be genetic. However, other studies done on identical twins (who’s genes are the same) have shown that environmental reasons as well.

So nobody knows! But dyslexia can also make you better at other task – a lot of chemists have really good spatial reasoning (because we have to be able to imagine molecules in 3D in our heads and rotate them around) and dyslexic people tend to be really good at this.

Im dyslexic! And I’m a scientist 🙂 so if you are too – don’t let it stop you!

Hope that answers your question – let me know if you want to know more 🙂