Tuesday, 16 September 2025

My dyslexia uni work has started again for 2025 / 26. I am feeling a little bit of trepidation abou this, but onwards and upwards

 

Unique Dyslexic logo

Hi from me up here in Glenrothes

Hope all is well with you out there in the real world.

My dyslexia uni work has started again for 2025 / 26. I am feeling a little bit of trepidation abou this because of the mini strome in my left eye. Hav had my first students already. Anne is on holiday from her work next week and we a looking to take a wee mini break. Think I have already mentioned I will be taking it slow and kee[ing stress out of my life.

Below is a podcast I did during COVID. Inspite of COVID my wife Anne, and I were very busy with our work and supporting our family etc.

                        A wee live vlog from me about my dyslexia work etc

The revamp of the Unique Dyslexic is going very well. It's almost completed. Looks fab, if I do say so myself.

I am working hard to reach our 500.000, Five Hundred Thousand views.

The specialist discovered a baby cateract in my riight eye. I have decided to get that sorted as soon as possible, Its not impacting the sight in my right eye right now, But I am believer in getting things done as quickly as possible.

Anyway, just a short blog from mw for a change.

#PeaceLoveGrooveyness 

from me, 

Steve #UniqueDysleic McCue

Thursday, 4 September 2025

New dyslexic academic year is here and other news.

 

Me in Pitlochry a few weeks ago

Hello my friends out there in the real world,

Hope you are all, doing away, out there. Firstly, I would like to thank all you subscribers out there, and to all who visit and read my blogs. I appreciate all your support. Please, consider becoming a subscriber, its totally free and helps keep me motivated. 

Well, a new academic year is here, will be seeing students again with My company Dyslexia Pathways CIC in a couple of weeks. I believe this is out 18th year of supporting the dyslexic and neuro diverse commpunities. Its been 30 years since I qualified as an inclusion specialist teacher, and 27 years since I began my career as a dyslexia specialist.

I am going to slow it down a bit, to help me cope with my old, "8 bit", left eye lol. Its been a rough few months since my mini stroke in January. It knocked a lot of the confidence out of me. but I am getting through it and getting back to my old self. Gawd, old being the operative world, how did I ever get to be 67 lol.

One other problem with my seeing eye is it has a baby caract lol. Its very small and  not impacting on my eye sight yet. I am down for cateract surgery as soo as I can get it. 

The update on my Unique Dyslexic web site is nearly completed and should be up and running again in a couple weeks.  It's looking much better than the old one. Thinking of running a Go Fund me or promoting my old Patreon, or something, to fund it.

I am going to go to the Business Gateway to explore ways of doing my dyslexia work on line. We will see how it goes. 

For my mental health and well being I have started going to an art and craft class once a week. This s going well, already made a couple small things here. I am also looking for an art or photography class. 

Finally, I am investigating doing parachute jumping again, not jumped in over 30 years. Have to see if I am medically fit enough to do one. 

I will let you all know once the new Unique Dyslexic website goes live. Should be a couple weeks.

Ok, thats enough for me in this blog,

Please comment if you like, or subscribe.

#PeaceLoveGrooveyness from me

Steve #UniqueDyslexic McCue

Tuesday, 2 September 2025

Dyslexia: Different Minds, Different Thinking, Unique Solutions:

 

Dyslexia: Different Minds, Different Thinking, Unique Solutions: #dyslexia a difference that reflects #diversity

Study shows stronger links between entrepreneurs and dyslexia
Dyslexia Pathways CIC Enabling Dyslexics to Fly

We must enable dyslexics to fly

The Dyslexic Mind is a Fabtastic Mind



It has long been known that dyslexics are drawn to running their own businesses, where they can get around their weaknesses in reading and writing and play to their strengths.

But a new study of entrepreneurs in the United States suggests that dyslexia is much more common among small-business owners than even the experts had thought.

The report, compiled by Julie Logan, a professor of entrepreneurship at the Cass Business School in London, found that more than a third of the entrepreneurs she surveyed - 35 percent - identified themselves as dyslexic. 

The study also concluded that dyslexics were more likely than nondyslexics to delegate authority and to excel in oral communication and problem solving and were twice as likely to own two or more businesses.

"We found that dyslexics who succeed had overcome an awful lot in their lives by developing compensatory skills," Logan said during an interview. "If you tell your friends and acquaintances that you plan to start a business, you'll hear over and over, 'It won't work. It can't be done.' But dyslexics are extraordinarily creative about maneuvering their way around problems."

The study was based on a survey of 139 business owners in a wide range of fields across the United States. Logan called the number who said they were dyslexic "staggering" and said it was significantly higher than the 20 percent of British entrepreneurs who said they were dyslexic in a poll she conducted in 2001.

She attributed the greater share in the United States to earlier and more effective intervention by American schools to help dyslexic students deal with their learning problems. 

Approximately 10 percent of Americans are believed to have dyslexia, experts say.
One reason that dyslexics are drawn to entrepreneurship, 

Logan said, is that strategies they have used since childhood to offset their weaknesses in written communication and organizational ability - identifying trustworthy people and handing over major responsibilities to them - can be applied to businesses.

"The willingness to delegate authority gives them a significant advantage over non-dyslexic entrepreneurs, who tend to view their business as their baby and like to be in total control," Logan said.

William Dennis Jr., senior research fellow at the Research Foundation of the National Federation of Independent Business, a 400,000-member trade group in Washington, said the study's results "fit into the pattern of what we know about small-business owners."

"Entrepreneurs are hands-on people who push a minimum of paper, do lots of stuff orally instead of reading and writing, and delegate authority, all of which suggests a high verbal facility," Dennis said. "Compare that with corporate managers who read, read, read."

According to Logan, only 1 percent of corporate managers in the United States have dyslexia.

Much has been written about the link between dyslexia and entrepreneurial success. Fortune Magazine, for example, ran a cover story five years ago about dyslexic business leaders, including Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Atlantic Airways; 

Charles Schwab, founder of the discount brokerage that bears his name; John Chambers, chief executive of Cisco; Craig McCaw, the cellular phone pioneer; and Paul Orfalea, founder of the Kinko's copy chain.

Similarly, Rosalie Fink, a professor at Lesley College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, wrote a paper in 1998 on 60 highly accomplished people with dyslexia, from a Nobel laureate to a Harvard oncologist.

But Logan said hers was the first study that she knew of that attempted to measure the percentage of entrepreneurs who had dyslexia. Carl Schramm, president of the Kauffman Foundation, which financed the research, agreed. He said the findings were surprising but, he noted that there was no previous baseline to measure it against.

Emerson Dickman, president of the International Dyslexia Association in Baltimore and a lawyer in Maywood, New Jersey, said the findings made sense. "Individuals who have difficulty reading and writing tend to deploy other strengths," said Dickman, who has dyslexia. "They rely on mentors, and as a result, become very good at reading other people and delegating duties to them. They become adept at using visual strengths to solve problems."

Orfalea, 60, who left Kinko's - now FedEx Kinko's - seven years ago, and who dabbles in a hodgepodge of business undertakings, is almost boastful about having both dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
"I get bored easily, and that is a great motivator," he said. "I think everybody should have dyslexia and ADD."
He attributes his success to his difficulty with reading and writing because it forced him to master verbal communication.
"I didn't have a lot of self confidence as a kid," he said. "And that is for the good. If you have a healthy dose of rejection in your life, you are going to have to figure out how to do it your way."

Danny Kessler, 26, also has dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. He founded Angels with Attitude, which holds self-defense seminars for women. He is a co-founder of Club E Network (www.clubenetwork.com), which sponsors "networking events," runs an online chat room for entrepreneurs and produces television shows about them.

He said he also had low self-esteem as a child, and now views that as a catapult into the entrepreneurial world. "I told myself I would never be a lawyer or a doctor," he said. "But I wanted to make a lot of money. And I knew business was the only way I was going to do it."

Hope you enjoyed this article and hope you feel more positive for reading it.

If you have enjoyed reading please leave a like or comment.

If you have not done so already please subscribe. It costs nothing and help grows my audience. Please share on your social media.

Many thanks for reading,

#PeaceLoveGrooveyness

from me

Steve #UniqueDyslexic McCue

Thursday, 28 August 2025

Nurturing my dyslexic mental health and welbeing, yep, forgot all about that bit lol

 


Original Unique Dyslexic logo from Unique Dyslexic Get Creative  Campaign


Hello to all my friends and followers out there. Hope all is well with you,

Well after a lot of procrastination and feeling like a rabbit caught in the headlights About a week ago I actually made the decision to redesign my Unique Dyslexic website.  Its taken me 7 months to get back my dyslexia and neuro diversity work but I feel I am not stationary any more. I am moving forward. 

When I designed to original Unque Dyslexic site the idea was that I was going to learn how to edit it myself. To evolve the site as I went along, but it just never seemed to get done. Never had the time or the energy. Having two heart attacks, type 2 diabetes and hypothiroid in the middle of the Unique Dyslexic campaign. Then I had all my Dyslexia Pathways University work on top. 

I over extended my self. Dyslexic deterrmination can be a fab thing but, as with all things dyslexic, it has its down sides.What with my Dyslexia Pathways CIC work together with the Unique Dyslexic campaign, Unique Dyslexic blog and podcast and all the other social media just never got done. Not forgetting my wife and family and my life in general. I guess I did was I always do. Got too focussed and tried to do it all lol. 

I am 67 now and had the mini stroke, so I guess I am going to have learn to slow down sooner or later lol. Maybe?


      Podcast for nurturing my mental health and well being during COVID

One of my followers asked me what I was doing to nurture my well being, mental health. If this video I walk about some of the music I have been listening to during COVID. What music have you been listening to? How are you supporting and nurturing your own mental health and well being during COVID? So I thought I would record the above blog.

Give it a listen and let me know what you think. I was going to carry on reviewing my fave books, music and dyslexia resources. All my dyslexia work had stopped for COVID so I used the time to learn new skills. I was actually doing an HND in Broadcasting, whichI passed when COVID hit.

Question to you all: What did you all do with all that COVID ceated spare time?

Question: What else would you like me to podcast about?

Ok, thats enough for this Unique Dyslexic Blog

#PeaceLoveGrooveyness from me to you

Steve #UniqueDyslexic McCue

Please leave a like if you feel it deserves one, or why not subscribe to help grow my audience. Maybe even leave a review or share it amongst you social media followers?

Thursday, 21 August 2025

A wee update on my mini stroke

 

Hi all,

Just written and posted a new podcast and post form my dyslexia focussed social enterprise since my mini stroke in January this year. I lost the sight in my left eye and I am also dyslexic. I am shattered. This is me a couple weeks ago. You would not think I had had a stroke in my left eye.

#PeaceLoveGrooveyness from me

Steve #UniqueDyslexic Mc|Cue

What is the social model of dyslexia and what it means for dyslexics

 


Hello to you all, hope everything is going well for you

I recorded this vlog above some time ago. In it I talk about the work my Social enterprise, Dyslexia Pathways Community Interest Company does. It was founded in 2007. We focus on dyslexia and neuro diversity and the academic. 

.

I also talk about our Unique Dyslexic Get Creative campaign which focusses on the creative.

At Dyslexia Pathways CIC we challenge a medical model of dyslexia that tells us dyslexia is all about, deficites, disorder and discrepency. It basically tells us our brains are broken and in need of remediation. In all honesty it is our education system that requires remediation.

The medical model of disability views disability primarily as a problem of the individual, directly caused by disease, trauma, or another health condition, which requires medical care provided in the form of individual treatment by professionals. In this model, disability is seen as a deficiency or abnormality.

There is also a social model of disability and neuro diversity This is a model that we support. 

The social model of dyslexia frames dyslexia not as a deficit, discrepancy and disorder within an individual, but as a difference in cognitive processing, that is compounded by societal barriers and expectations. By an education system that does not work for us.

It emphasizes that the challenges faced by individuals with dyslexia often stem from a world that is not designed to accommodate diverse learning styles and preferences, rather than from the condition itself. 

Dyslexia is not about #deficitesdisorderdiscrepency 

What is the best explanation of a medical model view of disabilities or the social model pf dyslexia?

Holpe you all enjoyed this blog and associated video.

Steve #UniqueDyslexic McCue

PS.

Please leave a like or a comment, maybe even subscribe, it would enable us to increase our foot print.

Right now this blog is heading towards half a million hits. So a big thanks to all those who helped us to achieve this.

Also thanks to all our directors and volunteers for the work they have done to support the dysexic and neuro diverse communities. 

Society tells us dyslexia is about, deficit, dissorder and discrepancy. This is an outmoded medical model of dyslexia, dyslexia is about diversity and difference, different minds unique solutions


Thursday, 14 August 2025

We as dyslexic need to get together to build a social movement to improve the lives of dyslexics clobally

 

Me recordinng one of my Unique Dyslexic Eye Podcasts

Hi blog readers hope you are all well


For decades we have had individual parents of dyslexic kids fighting our education system one at a time. Sometimes they win little victories and get support for their dyslexic kids. Most of the time they face long battles and get nowhere. 

My research showed only 19% of dyslexic adults were assessed while at school. This is simply not good enough.

We as dyslexic adults need to get together to build a social movement where we can work together. Work together to bring positive changes to the current education system that up to now is still failing too many of us and our children. 

Right now many of us are fighting for positive change from the bottom upwards. We have to influence those who are responsible for developing education policy. This can only be done if we work together and take this to those who make policy. 

There needs to be political will to make the changes to our education system that will enable our dyslexic kids to succeed is school. Right now there is no political will to do this. Only by working together can we influence those who run our education system.

We have to make a much more positive case for supporting our dyslexic kids. We have to move away from an old outdated medical model of dyslexia that basically tells us our brains do not work correctly. That somehow we are not normal. That we are broken in some way. 


What does this say to potential employers about dyslexics? What does this say to our dyslexic kids? Its a medical model that talks about dyslexia in terms of discrepancy, disorder and deficits. 

Its a three D model that's about as 3D as a blank sheet of paper. If puts a focus on dyslexics as being the problem and totally fails to recognise that dyslexics fail because our education system and society is dyslexia unfriendly.

I am not saying dyslexics do not need support at school. What I am saying is we need teachers in every classroom being trained to teach to meet the diversity of learning needs in the class room. To enable teachers to do their job of teaching our dyslexic kids together with their non dyslexic, neuro diverse or disabled peers in a classroom. All together living, learning and playing together.  

Every day I visit Facebook I read real life stories about dyslexic kids and parents battles to get what is a human right to a good education. Stories about dyslexic kids not wanting to go to school. About parents seeing their children crying and frustration and fear about going to school. This is just not good enough at all. 

I believe it is society that disables dyslexics and that's why I promote and support the social model of dyslexia. I am not saying it's a perfect model but it places the responsibility for the failure of our education to meet the learning needs of dyslexic kids where it belongs. 

Not on the shoulders of dyslexic kids and parents. But squarely on the shoulders of those who shape our education system and politicians why are responsible for developing and running an education system that fails so many of us. 

Dyslexics can and do succeed but many do so in spite of their education not because of it. 


photo above: we must enable dyslexic kids to fly and learn together with their disabled, neuro diverse and non dyslexic peers

We must change how we think about what it means to be dyslexic in a society that disables. We must change how we think and talk about dyslexia.

We have to challenge the current medical discrepancy of dyslexia. It is a model that has nothing positive to say about dyslexia or to dyslexics. It is a model that has only served to trap us behind a narrow one dimensional negative stereotype definition of dyslexia. A definition that totally ignores and stifles our potential and strengths.

That is why I support the social model of dyslexia. It talks about dyslexia in terms of diversity and difference and it recognises that it is society that disables us.

#dyslexia is a difference that reflects #diversity. We need to unleash and nurture that potential not remediate or stifle it.

What are your thoughts on this? please comment


Anyway that's enough from me apart to say my #dyslexia blog has had neary 395.000 reads. Ta to all who read and contribute to my blog including guest bloggers. Hope you enjoy and share my latest one.

many thanks for reading and your support

#PeaceLoveGroovyness to all my blog followers and readers

Why not visit my Unique Dyslexic Eye podcast page and join fab dyslexia / neuro diverse clan.


#PeaceLoveGrooveyness from me

Steve #UniqueDyslexic McCue