Originally Posted by CCN
I have a friend who teaches advanced calculus, and her spelling is not good. She has a math brain smile I worked for a very successful, senior salesman for a major telecom company whose spelling was even worse. He has a sales brain smile I could go on and on... you get the idea. Your daughter can say "I'm not good at spelling - instead I have a ____ brain!"

Although, I do think she handled herself fine in front of her friends. What you could do is focus on making her feel better about it. Give her as many real life examples as you can of adults who have been very successful in their careers and in sharing their ideas even without good spelling ability. Also reminder about spell check, and tell her they would not have invented it if there wasn't a need for it, so she is not alone in her spelling challenges.


I think this is great. I have a DD 13 that was just diagnosed, but has always been very very smart, and cannot spell at all. My DD has long had her own answer when questioned - she tells kids that she can always look up the spelling of words, but they can't look up algebra the same way. My DD is very comfy with the idea that her brain works differently than most peoples. Maybe in a way she was lucky that she has always believed that her brain works "better" than most peoples. Finding out that that she has an actual issue came later in life for her, after she had already gotten very used to how "smart" she is.

I have asked my DD if she would be willing to trade her "out there" way of thinking for the ability to spell/write/read like "normal" and she is adamant she much prefers her brain to a normal one.

Maybe the lesson for the younger set is to go ahead and point out that they have an amazing math brain as suggested (or amazing art brain or whatever). My DD explains it to her friends like "there is only so much room in a brain - I have way more math & science skills - something had to go so I could have all that - I jettisoned spelling".