I have dyslexia. One of the hardest parts of any disability is explaining how it effects you to others. Many people think of a visual flipping of letters when they hear dyslexia, but that is not how it effect most people. This post by the new tutoring service Clark, had a great quote.

Differences can be seen in the brain’s development of those who have dyslexia and those who do not. The condition is commonly misunderstood as a visual impairment that results in the jumbling and reversal of letters. However, dyslexia is not visually-based. Instead, dyslexia is a processing issue that affects how the brain interprets information. Researchers have found that the condition is neurobiological in origin, stemming from a physical difference in the brains of those who suffer from it. MIT and Boston University neuroscientists recently identified a deficiency in a brain mechanism related to processing sensory input. In those suffering from dyslexia, the speed at which the processing occurred was halved. . . . Those with dyslexia have phonological processing deficits and “do not map letters onto the correct sounds.” Research through brain imaging has shown that this occurs because people who have dyslexia show less activation of the temporal and left posterior brain areas during reading tasks than do non-dyslexic people.

To bring this point home, the summer before I entered high school was when I finally mastered what sound goes with what vowel.