Certain types of synesthesia allow words/ letters/ numbers to be seen as different colors. If someone was able to see different colors with separate letters, would this help the letters be not mixed up for dyslexia?
In: 1
No, it typically makes things much worse. As an example, consider dyscalculia, which is a specific kind of dyslexia for numbers, and how synesthesia with symbols would affect that.
Imagine that someone sees the number 5 as yellow. Why? Who knows, brains are weird. But to them, 5 is yellow. And 3 is blue to them.
We know and are taught that yellow + blue = green. That’s how light works. However, for this person there’s no reason that the symbol 8 would be green. Maybe it’s red or orange or orange with purple polkadots or bright red with black zebra stripes. Now the person is having to fight two different kinds of logic going on in their head. *Mathematically*, 5 + 3 = 8. But the colors that they perceive when they look at these symbols does not match: yellow + blue = red with black stripes!?
Similarly, the colors or tastes or shapes or smells – however their brain is interpreting the letters – may not match their interpretation of the symbols *combined* as a whole word. Even if their brain doesn’t consider the whole word that way, the colors and shapes and smells and whatever can be very distracting. [Here is a simulation](https://tll.gse.harvard.edu/dyslexia-simulator) of what *roughly, subjectively* a person with dyslexia *might* be experiencing. Imagine that, but every letter is a different color (or smell or whatever). Neurotypical people often struggle to read when there are too many colors on the page.
Worse, as I’ve tried to imply, synesthesia is not limited to colors. It can cause shapes and smells and tastes and physical sensations, and *sounds*. Imagine synesthesia where visual stimuli (like shapes and *letters*) trigger sounds, and those sounds do not match the sound that letter is meant to represent in your language!
And of course, this is a broad generalization. Everyone’s experience is different. I have neither dyslexia nor synesthesia so I can’t speak from experience and it’s entirely possible that someone with them has leveraged the sensations from synesthesia to help them read. From my limited understanding of the conditions, though, that is unlikely to be the case.
Latest Answers