I have a friend with dyslexia. She has amazing ability to 'read' people's emotions. True correlation?

Question

I have a friend who has classic dyslexia -- reverses words while reading, sometimes while speaking (she'll sometimes say hoppergrass instead of grasshopper. But when it comes to 'reading' people's emotions she is amazing. She can pick up a person's personality or mood immediately. She can also figure out movies almost supernaturally. Ex. We were watching a John Grisham movie, and after 5 minutes, she whispered exactly who was going to be the good guy and who would be the bad guy--and she never saw or read it. I also read a book by a psychologist who claims his research shows similar findings. Have you had direct experience with this phenomenon--either because you have dyslexia or have a good friend with it?

Answer 1

I'm good at reading people and I'm dyslexic but I'm not sure that my being good at reading people comes from that or having been in the hospital a lot when I was younger. When you spend a lot of time alone you tend to focus on people to find out what they aren't tellling you. I grew up in the 60 and early 70's and doctors and parents didn't tell children a whole lot back then even if it involved the child. So if I wanted to know what was going on I had to learn to read the body language of my parents, and doctors. I also come from a large family where you didn't always get the attention that you wanted so you learned to listen and look to find out things that you wanted to know but no one would tell you. Since I spent a lot of time by myself reading after I learned how to do it well and watching other people I learned how to tell what people were thinking and what they were feeling. My younger daughter is also good with reading people but I think that for her it was a way of compensating for her dyslexia it taught her how to know what the teachers wanted and what some of the other kids in her class wanted. It also taught her to know which kids were the ones most likely to tease her. That may also be one reason that I learned, I have psychical disability and was teased a lot as a child. I learned to tell who would bother me and who wouldn't by the way that they acted even before I talked to them. So maybe I leared from those experinces also.

Answer 2

A correlation is just that, a thing that is proportional to something else. However, they are not causes of things.
Reading people is a talent the same as reading books. You can either learn it , or you just have it. You can go and read books about body language and you can go and read books about speed reading or you can simply naturally be good at either or both.

Answer 3

There may be some correlation but there is not to my knowledge causation. That is, the condition does not directly lead to increased social ability as one of its syptoms. However, sometimes people with disabilities are forced to compensate by becoming very good with people. People who have been the victims of abuse by their parents as children are often very good at reading people's facial expressions as they acquired the skill by being forced to learn their parents' moods. It is amazing how different people can learn certain skills in counterintuitive ways.

Answer 4

I have dyslexia myself and I can sense peoples emotions. Not sure if it comes with the disability or just comes natural.I do not think it's from compensating for my disability though.