A BRIGHT yellow leaflet fluttered out of my Citizen last week. It advertised a healing meeting at an unfamiliar church and one of the testimonies upon it caught my eye.

It claimed that someone who had suffered from dyslexia all her life was cured by a healer who prayed 'Lord, separate the left side from the right side'.

Was he trying to perform a spiritual lobotomy? Shouldn't he have prayed for the opposite: better integration of the left and right side of the brain? Dyslexia is not an illness so cannot be cured.

Whenever news of a 'treatment' for dyslexia hits the headlines, adults with dyslexia respond that, even were it possible, they would not wish to be 'cured' of a condition that is also responsible for their special abilities.

So what are these skills? They can include visualisation, lateral thinking and troubleshooting, entrepreneurship, unusual creativity, an untaught understanding of how parts fit together or how systems operate.

Find out more about tackling dyslexic difficulties and developing the abilities from Lancaster Adult Dyslexics by phoning Geoff on 01524-382961 or coming to our monthly meetings.

A final issue raised by the testimony: the woman concluded that she could now read without the letters running into each other.

This is known as Meares-Irlen Syndrome, common among dyslexics. We are fortunate in Lancaster to have to two specialist optometrists who really can treat this condition.

Melanie Jameson, Lancaster.