Inside Our Minds
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- Episode
- Inside Our Dyslexic Minds
- Broadcast Info
- 2025 (59 mins)
- Description
- Following the success of his multi-award-winning series ‘Inside Our Autistic Minds’, naturalist Chris Packham returns to explore other types of neurodivergence. 1 in 7 people have brains that work differently and more people are being diagnosed with ADHD, dyslexia and autism than ever before. But neurodivergent people are more likely to experience depression, anxiety and even suicidal thoughts. Chris believes this is a hidden crisis and wants to help neurodivergent people explain what’s going on inside their minds. And this time he’s exploring dyslexia. It’s thought that as many as 1 in 10 people in the UK are dyslexic, making it the most diagnosed type of neurodivergence. But despite this, Chris feels that dyslexia is frequently ignored and often misunderstood. In this episode, Chris meets two dyslexic people frustrated that that the people in their lives don’t fully understand them. Teaming up with top filmmakers, animators and graphic designers, they create evocative short films which explain to family and friends how they’re truly feeling inside - and what’s really going on inside their dyslexic minds. For Chris, this topic also has a personal significance - his stepdaughter Megan is dyslexic. Chris starts by meeting Lee, a construction site manager from South Wales with a love of singing and musicals. He performs as part of a male voice choir and with a rock covers band, but he’s always dreamed of being on stage. Lee was only diagnosed as dyslexic in his early fifties so went through school assuming he was, in his words ‘thick’. Terrible at English, he used to sneak off to woodwork instead and was funnelled towards the trades. Although he loves building things and working with his hands, he wonders what his life could have looked like if his dyslexia had been spotted and supported earlier. One of the aspects of dyslexia that most frustrates Lee is the difficulty he has learning the words for songs. In his band, he has all the lyrics on a tablet, and he lip reads his choir leader during performances. The film he makes with Chris will be for his entire community, so that the people in his life can understand what he’s struggled with other the years and to prove them all that he is so much more than ‘just’ a builder. Next, Chris heads to South London to meet Suiki, a newly qualified psychotherapist who works as a school councillor. Like Lee, Suiki was only diagnosed as an adult when she returned to university to study for a degree. Being dyslexic makes it more difficult for Suiki to order her thoughts and recall information, especially in high pressure situations. She also struggles with organisation and with navigation - a particular problem for many dyslexic people. Suiki feels that since her diagnosis, she has never been able to have an honest conversation with her three brothers about how being dyslexic truly affects her. She would like them to have a better understanding about how things that appear simple on the surface can cause her a great deal of anxiety - and she hopes that the film she makes with Chris will help. Chris also meets Prof Joel Talcott, a neuroscientist from Aston University, to find out more about what might be going on in the brains of dyslexic people and visits one of the most secure sites in the country, GCHQ’s Cheltenham headquarters, to learn how the intelligence services are actively recruiting dyslexic people to be 21st Century spies.
- Genre
- Research; Health & Social Care
How to cite this record
The Open University, "Inside Our Minds". https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ou/search/index.php/prog/253245 (Accessed 24 Nov 2025)