Reading Time: 3 minutes
Jinger Duggar is now podcasting without her husband and opening up more about her life.
Together with Joy, she revealed that she has a learning disability.
Jinger’s dyslexia wasn’t caught and diagnosed as part of her cult-approved homeschooling curriculum.
Instead, it even impacted the way that Jinger engaged with her faith, right down to reading the bible.
Jinger Duggar has dyslexia?
On the second official episode of the Call Your Sister podcast, Jinger and Joy-Anna Duggar discussed growing up.
They explored a few topics, from phases (of course using the “seasons” in-group language) to first crushes (when Jinger was 9, she had a crush on an older man she referred to as a “teacher,” though she acknowledges that he cold have been a teen at the time).
Jinger also disclosed that she has dyslexia, a learning disability that interferes with reading.
Had she attended anything resembling an actual school, it’s likely that this would have been identified in childhood.
Instead, Jinger learned her own workarounds … but it really interfered when it came time for Jinger to read the bible.
When Jinger was around 12 years old, she shared, she sat down to read her religion’s sacred text from cover to cover.
That makes a lot of sense for a Christian (or a non-Christian looking to better understand our heavily culturally Christian society) to do, but Jinger discovered that this was a challenge.
Referring to this plan as part of the “season of life” that she was in at the time, Jinger tried to explain.
“I [was] just determined to read it from start to finish within two months,” she shared.
“And somehow I relied on audio Bibles,” Jinger revealed, “‘cause I have dyslexia.”
‘I know how hard it is for me to read out loud’
“Never been, whatever they say, diagnosed,” Jinger Duggar quickly admitted.
Due to our nation’s healthcare system, many people do not receive a diagnosis that could better explain their lives or open access to accommodations that they need in order to thrive.
“But I know how hard it is for me to read out loud,” she shared.
“Now, reading aloud is different than reading it like looking at it,” Jinger specified, “but it still is hard.”
Jinger acknowledged: “So my comprehension is terrible.”
The primary argument for sending children to actual schools instead of condemning them to homeschooling doesn’t really involve diagnosing things like dyslexia or ADHD or left-handedness or other traits that a teacher might recognize but a parent might not. It’s not even on the Top 5 list.
But it is on the list. And, looking on social media, it doesn’t seem that anyone is surprised that Jinger’s struggles with reading slipped by Michelle.
When your priorities are indoctrination and isolation, entire academic topics can leave the curriculum, and a learning disability or other brain difference can easily go unnoticed — or, worse, blamed on the child.
It’s good that Jinger knows herself well enough as an adult to identify that she has dyslexia.
When kids with dyslexia learn to “work around” their reading difficulties, they often engage in guesswork — learning the shapes and sizes of words instead of phonics. That’s not the same as reading.
Many folks online have pointed out that dyslexia often runs in families. How many other Duggars have undiagnosed dyslexia?
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