All children with specific learning difficulties improve as they grow. In some, the difficulties resolve completely, while others continue to have some degree of difficulty in the specific areas of learning affected. We still have no way of determining which children will continue to experience difficulty and which will not. Nor do we have reliable figures on the relative proportions of those where the difficulties resolve completely and those where they persist. This chapter provides information and advice for adults with persisting specific learning difficulties. Many people are designed to be better adults than children. A child has little opportunity of selecting those things that he enjoys or finds easier, and to avoid those he dislikes or finds difficult. He is required to be an all-rounder, performing a wide range of activities, many under the critical scrutiny of his teachers and peers. It is daunting to think of what many children are required to do regularly at school: reading aloud, writing something that will be marked (for content, neatness, and spelling), doing arithmetical computations that will be checked, playing competitive sport, performing in a play in public, and playing a musical piece to a critical audience. An adult, on the other hand, can have a successful career and avoid any, or all, of these activities. Many famous people are said to have had a specific learning difficulty as children, but it is very difficult to know for certain if this is true. Nevertheless, many of their stories are highly suggestive of the condition. What they all show, whether they had a specific learning difficulty or not, is that problems with learning in childhood need not be a bar to outstanding achievements in adulthood. There follow some examples. . . . Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) . Famous as an author of children’s stories such as ‘The Little Match-girl’ and ‘The Little Mermaid’, his handwriting shows characteristics of specific learning difficulty. . . . . . . Auguste Rodin (1840–1917). Now famous for his sculptures, such as ‘The Thinker’ and ‘The Burghers of Calais’, he was regarded as ‘an idiot’, and ‘ineducable’ as a child. . . .
The creative heir Rodin or Erzya natural nugget?