National Adult Literacy Database

In this short video, a young woman explains how having a learning disability affected her during her school years.

Angela loves horses, singing, and writing songs. She also has dyslexia, a learning disability characterized by difficulty with reading.

At school, teachers assumed that because she had trouble reading, she wasn’t as smart as the other children and, as a result, placed her in less challenging classes. In spite of her learning disability, Angela actually graduated from high school a semester early.

She urges people with learning disabilities to be creative and to believe that they can do things. As well, she urges everyone to show empathy and to understand that others may be dealing with problems that aren’t obvious to a casual observer.