What about Genetics?

I've been in love with family genealogy since the day my Great-Aunt Mable came to visit our family after my little brother, John, was born.  I was seven years old but I still see the scene in my mind; I was standing on the couch, right next to where she sat, intently listening to every word she said, leaning in as close to her as I possibly could. She told the story of our ancestors coming to America, and building a fort in West Virginia during the Revolutionary War.  My mother surely recognized how deeply I was involved with Aunt Mable's discourse---that's the only way I can ever imagine she'd allow me to stand on the couch!


The other day I found a note that I'd jotted down from an archive.  (I'm still fascinated with family genealogy...thank you Aunt Mabel!) 


"1871--Jason Coke Henkle had been a director of the 1st National Bank, Springfield, Illinois for the past ten years.  He and his wife, Kate, had been some of the first settlers in the area. They kept as close to their friends and family as possible---the Kickapoo and Pottawatomie Indians were friendly but it was not always pleasant." 


The experiences of my ancestor's life's are intriguing, to me.  Genealogy allows me to vividly re-live the times those that came before me experienced but the historical information can lead us to discover dyslexic traits that our ancestors may have had.  Actually, you don't have to go back to the 1870's to find out traits about your family. You can examine the traits that you see in your own family--your parents, children, cousins, aunts, uncles....


According to Wikipedia there are three proposed cognitive sub-types of dyslexia:  auditory, visual and attentional.  And dyslexia, which is often called reading dyslexia, is the most common learning disability (although the term learning difference may more clearly describe what dyslexia truly is.)  Wikipedia describes dyslexia as "manifesting itself as a difficulty with phonological awareness, phonological decoding, orthographic coding, auditory short-term memories or rapid naming."  


What this all means is that we can find dyslexic traits within how we (or our ancestors) read, write, hear, speak and in the end, how we feel about ourselves.  So don't just brush aside the things you know about your self or a loved one.  Don't discount the difficulty that you might have with comprehending what you've read, having difficulty with writing or even remember people's names!


Here's the link to Wikipedia if you want to look it up for your self.  
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyslexia