Hinshelwood, J., (1896)
Particularly fascinating is this paper presented to the Glasgow Medico-Chirurgical Society in November 1896 by Hinshelwood (1896)
who was reporting a case he had recently seen concerning a middle-aged adult admitted to a local infirmary with a 'sickness' such that the poor soul described himself as 'becoming stupid when he attempted to do anything'. Hinshelwood reports that in addition to this man exhibiting what we may now regard as classic indications of a dyslexic learning difference - an inability to follow text from one line to the next, difficulty in translating clearly-seen printed letters and words into their sounds and meanings - his employer (the main was a tailor) reported that only recently, this worker had latterly seemed to forget how to proceed with tailoring a garment after starting it, often making fundamental mistakes such as sewing pieces together in the wrong order or failing to recognize the shapes and sizes of them and hence their position in the finished product.
A significant factor in this account is that as well as the immediately appaent confusion related to the subject's word-blindness, there was reported the additional difficulties that we now have come to understand as working memory deficits (in the context of his tailoring job at least) and problems of sequencing and systematically ordering tasks and processes. It is as often these additional 'differences' that dyslexic individuals in Higher Education contexts present that in The Researcher's experience at least are often as big a challenge as any word-blindness when it comes to efficaciously engaging with the learning process and curriculum delivery at university. As interest in dyslexia progressed throughout the 20th centrury, and most certainly in the later decades, the focus has been on children's abilities to learn to read and finding ways to explain this using dyslexia as the model which may have obscured other significant factors that are 'different' in the learning processes of those with dyslexia that only manifest themselves in adulthood and amongst clearly intelligent and capable students in Higher Education contexts.
The full paper is available in project journal resources -> repository 1