Imagine this… you could be the mom of the next famous comedian. Humor is being identified as one of a dyslexic person’s strong suits. The research makes sense and I also wonder if there is more to it than just humor being a right-brained skill that dyslexic people are good at.
Ever heard of The Dyslexic Advantage? I’d say it one of the best books about dyslexia. Drs Brock and Fernette Eide have done some pretty incredible things for the dyslexic community through their years of publishing research and non-profit work. They recently put out an article about the connection between humor and dyslexia. The article got me thinking.
The research is showing that many of the skills needed to be funny are found in the right hemisphere, where a dyslexic person is hard-wired. I know we have a little comedian on our hands. Any of you? I love learning about valuable skills that come a little easier for those with dyslexia. It’s kind of refreshing to think that for all their challenges, they are offset by other amazing skills. Clearly, not everyone with dyslexia is the next Ellen DeGeneres, Kevin Hart, or Jerry Seinfield, but they may have enough innate skills to be the comic relief when needed. (We could all use a little more of that these days.) The foundational skills for humor, as defined in the article, are creativity, finding a connection between situations, word puns, and perception of irony. These are all right-brained processes.
I started wondering though about how much humor is used as a defense mechanism and that’s why you find so many “funny guys” within the dyslexic community. It’s better to be the funny one than the stupid one. Dyslexic children are very aware of how they are different from their peers and that reading should be “easy”. They know they are smart, but they can’t seem to figure out how to do this task everyone else does naturally. It’s jarring for them to mesh those two realities. So something has to give. Either they decide they aren’t smart after all, or they decide they are above it all. Children desperately want others to like and approve of them. Making someone laugh is a surefire way to gain approval. As we know, it can also create a safety barrier between them and the other person. No one can get close enough to really understand or help with the deep emotions they are carrying around. The humor is a constant deflection. It gives them an easy way to hide their struggles.
When a person gets in the habit of not taking anything seriously and making everything a joke, it can affect how much effort they are willing to put towards projects, work, school, etc. And again, what a great way to cover up that you are struggling if your outlook is based on nothing really matters anyway. A child can laugh off any failure because he/she knows they didn’t try all that hard. A slippery slope into apathy. For many students, it’s easier to accept that you didn’t try versus trying and failing. This is clearly something all children deal with, not just those with specific learning disabilities.
I’m sure there is plenty more to discuss around this but I just wanted to put a quick message out, that if your child is constantly laughing off his/her struggles, you may want to look a little deeper. If you start seeing those reports that your child is the class clown, it may be time to investigate what they are hiding. It can be so hard to see your child struggle. It is harder knowing what the right course of action is to help. However hard it is to get them to open up, keep trying. Keep reminding them that you are there for them. You are fighting for them. You believe in them. Understand that your child might not be able to articulate what they are really feeling and it’ll be up to you to read between the lines. Our children need to know we are in their corner and we are their #1 fan.
