Dyslexia and creativity in Maltese male adolescents

Abstract

Dyslexia in Malta constitutes a significant share of the work load of most educational psychologists. This difficulty is often compounded by the use of English and Maltese that are taught side by side. Against a backdrop of learners battling against their difficulties with variable rates of success, optimistic voices make a case for such learners’ other skills to be recognised. There is some anecdotal evidence which suggests that dyslexia may be associated with enhanced creativity but in reality there are few empirical studies which support this notion and results are sometime inconsistent, in part due to the difficulty in recruiting the right participants in large enough numbers. Vic Martinelli and Josef Schembri try their hand at throwing some more light on the issue through a study which if no different from others before it, claims to be tightly controlled and is embedded in a bilingual context.