In Chandana Singh’s Own Words — from JYNM: “Dyslexia, Schooling & Self-Worth”

“Made by dyslexia — creative, intelligent, resilient, team workers, and absolutely an
asset. Come join my team.”
— Chandana Singh

I practiced law in the Bombay and Delhi High Courts before a personal experience with dyslexia sent me
back to school myself — this time to complete a special education course, and eventually to found
Advocacy for Dyslexia and help set up Ashoka University’s Office of Learning Support.

I’ve worked in the learning-disabilities field for roughly twenty years now. Accommodation is not an
advantage — it is access. That distinction is the center of almost everything I do.

1. What Dyslexia Is, and the Myths I Most Want Gone

Dyslexia, alongside dysgraphia and dyscalculia — together, specific learning disabilities — comes from the brain being differently wired, with no effect on intelligence. I systematically debunk the myths: dyslexic students aren’t lazy or dumb, IQ is typically average to above average, and the real diagnostic red flag is the gap between ability and performance. It’s not poor eyesight, and it can’t be cured by diet. It’s a lifelong condition to be navigated, not fixed. The film “Taare Zameen Par” created a genuine before-and-after shift in Indian public understanding — I still remember an educator telling a parent in the school, after watching this movie “Oh! I now understand what you are speaking about – your child seems to have the same problem as the boy in the movie!”

2. Three Real Cases That Show What Stigma Actually Costs

An engineering-bound student whose dyslexia affected only reading and English, while his math, physics, and music were exceptional. A student who needed to read a page ten to twelve times to fully grasp it, until his parents began reading chapters aloud, cutting a four-hour homework session to thirty minutes with identical comprehension. A high-achieving girl under intense parental academic pressure who studied eight to nine hours daily, developed severe spelling errors, but wasn’t tested for a learning disability until medical college — despite the toll it took throughout her schooling. Because dyslexia is a hidden disability, stigma stops students from seeking help, causing them to fall further behind — a vicious cycle that can lead to dropping out entirely.

3. The Glasses Analogy: Accommodation Isn’t an Advantage

Remediation is ongoing skill-building; accommodations — extra time, reader-writer support, spelling concessions — simply bring a student at par with peers, not ahead of them. Wearing glasses doesn’t advantage someone who needs them over someone who doesn’t; it just lets them see like everyone else. School carries the heaviest support burden because of exam pressure and dependency on parents; by the workforce, tools like AI and delegated tasks make things far easier — I know a senior managing director in his mid-forties who still dictates his emails to an assistant, decades into a successful career.

4. My A-C-T Framework for Parents

Acceptance — genuinely accepting the learning need, not just tolerating it. Compassion — for the child, and for yourself as a parent, since you should expect to drop a few balls. Training — educating yourself about the condition. Parents must proactively meet every subject teacher and the school’s learning support staff at the start of each academic year, without becoming helicopter parents, because a child’s own capacity to self-advocate typically only becomes realistic in college. Helping set up Ashoka’s Office of Learning Support taught me the model: a dedicated physical space staffed by trained special educators and counselors who build individualized plans and liaise with faculty — finding enough trained, genuinely empathetic staff is the single biggest bottleneck any institution faces.

Tools & Strategies

• Formal accommodations — extra time, reader-writer support, spelling concessions, audiobooks, to bring students to parity, not advantage.
• The A-C-T framework — Acceptance, Compassion, Training, as a self-check for parents before advocating for a child.
• A dedicated Learning Support Center — coordinating between student, parents, and subject teachers.
• Early testing triggered by an ability-performance gap — ideally starting around grades three to eight, not waiting for a crisis.

Life may seem difficult, but it is possible to dream big and achieve big. Understanding can start with a small conversation. It’s now time to act — A, C, T: acceptance, compassion, and training.

Listen to the full episode: youtube.com/watch?v=ATen4yCce1Q

Topics covered: #Dyslexia #LearningDisabilities #SLD #InclusiveEducation #AshokaUniversity #NeurodivergentStudents