
In terms of learning foreign languages, students with dyslexia are often disregarded as those that lack proper abilities to study another language besides their own. Yet, this assumption is rather far-fetched.
According to the Society for Neuroscience, almost 44 million American children and adults have dyslexia, and about 3.5% of American students already receive special education services for their special learning needs. So many U.S. citizens should not be deprived of the opportunity to learn a foreign language because of dyslexia, but many people simply don’t understand the specificity of this learning difficulty.
In general, dyslexia is defined as a specific learning difficulty that influences the way information is perceived. However, it doesn’t necessarily mean that a child or an adult with dyslexia cannot learn a foreign language. Dyslexia can have a significant impact on writing and reading skills, as it affects the way how information is perceived, organised, sequenced and stored, which can be difficult, taking into account that a good memory is a prerequisite of learning a foreign language successfully.