“If I had known what was the matter with me and why I couldn't read, would everything have been easier just because my difficulties had a name? Yes, it would. Perhaps the need to survive would not have been so strong, perhaps I would not have been so resilient, but it would have been easier, just knowing that I was not mentally retarded, or lazy, or backward, or emotionally disturbed, but that the small part of my brain governing language was not functioning, either through heredity, or contitions at birth, and that the malfunction had a NAME. To know that it was not a disease but a disability, a condition that could be improved, would have made all the difference.”