famous persons with disabilities

7/28/2019 Famous Persons With Disabilities

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His teachers said that he was mentally slow, unsociable and adrift in his foolish

dreams. He could not talk until the age of four. He did not learn to read

until he was nine. His teachers considered him slow, unsociable and a

dreamer. He failed the entrance examinations to college but finally passed

the after an additional year of preparation. He lost three teaching positions

and then became a paten clerk. Even as an adult Einstein found that

searchin for words was laborious. He found school work, es eciall math,

Leonardo Da Vinci was also believed to suffer from a number of learning

disabilities including dyslexia and attention deficit disorder. Strong

evidence in Da Vinci’s manuscripts and letters corroborates the

diagnosis of dyslexia. It appears that Leonardo wrote his notes

backwards, from right to left, in a mirror image. This is a trait shared by

many left-handed dyslexic people. In addition to the handwriting, the

spelling errors in his manuscripts and journals demonstrated dyslexia-

Pablo Picasso was a famous, controversial, and trend-setting art icon. He is

described as having difficulty reading the orientation of the letters and labeled

a dyslexic, and despite the initial difficulties was able to catch up with the

curriculum. However, dyslexia made school difficult and he never really

benefited from his education.



He was bright and intelligent and bursting with energy, he was unable to read and

write. His wife corrected his spelling, his punctuation and his grammar. George

Patton was one of America's most successful army generals of World War Two.

Patton's Third Army cut a bloody swath through German forces during the Liberation

of France and the Ardennes Campaign, which is best known for the Battle of the

Bulge. When he was twelve years old, he could not read yet and he remained

deficient in reading all his life. However, he could memorize entire lectures, which

Helen Keller was an American author, political activist, and lecturer. She was

the first deaf blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. In February 1882,

when Helen was nineteen months old, she fell ill. Helen’s illness left her both

blind and deaf. She made up signs with her hands so she could "talk" to her

famil . She had 60 different si ns.



A teacher sent the following note home with a six-Year old boy: “He is too stupid to

learn.” That boy was …Thomas Edison.

Surprisingly, little "Al" Edison, did not learn to talk until he was almost four years of

age. Thomas Edison was a brilliant scientist and inventor of the Bulbs, Motion Pictures

and photographs and lots more. He was thrown out of school when he was 12

because he was thought to be dumb. He was noted to be terrible at mathematics,

unable to focus, and had difficult with words and s eech.

He was the inventor of Braille, a system for blind or visually impaired people

to be able to read and write. Louis Braille became blind at the age of three,

when he accidentally poked himself in the eye with a stitching awl, one of his

father's workshop tools. The injury wasn't thought to be serious until it got

infected. Braille's other eye went blind because of sympathetic ophthalmia.

He was regularly punished in school for failure or lack of effort,

sometimes failing the same class numerous times.

Winston Churchill served as Britain’s Prime Minister known for his

leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War (WWII).



“I couldn’t read. I just scraped by. My solution back then was to read classic

comic books because I could figure them out from the context of the pictures.”

Charles Schwab, founder, chairman and CEO of Charles Schwab Corporation,

which has helped millions of “average Joe’s” manage their money through

investments and other banking and financial services. He had extreme difficulty

taking notes in class, flunking English two times, and struggling in foreign

Stephen William Hawking is a British theoretical physicist and Mathematician, whose

world-renowned scientific career spans over 40 years. Stephen Hawking is severelydisabled by motor neuron disease. Symptoms of the disorder first appeared while he

was enrolled at Cambridge; he lost his balance and fell down a flight of stairs, hitting

his head, when Hawking was 21. Hawking gradually lost the use of his arms, legs, and

voice and as of 2009 was almost com letel aral zed.

“I’d try to concentrate on what I was reading, then I’d get to the end of the

page and have very little memory of anything I’d read.”

An actor whose name has become synonymous with all-American

testosterone-driven entertainment, Tom Cruise spent the 1980s as one of

Hollywood's brightest-shining golden boys. Despite being a success in his

chosen field, this entertainer can learn lines only by listening to a tape.



“As a kid I had a hard time reading in school. I was the kid who wouldgo one period a day to the class for kids with learning disabilities.”Comedian actor Vince Vaughn credits his learning disabilities with

making him a film star - because they forced him to work harder thanhis peers. The Dodge ball star suffered chronic dyslexia and attentiondeficit disorder. Some of the movies Vaughn appeared in are: The Lost

“As a child I was called stupid and lazy. On the SAT I got 159 out of 800 in math.”

Henry Winkler having struggled - and suffered - throughout his school years with unidentified dyslexia. He

never attended special-education class. His German-Jewish immigrant parents didn't understand his learning problem. Their nickname for him was the German expression for "dumb dog.”.

Henry Winkler is best known for his role as Fonzie on the 1970s American sitcom Happy Days. In additionto his movie and film credits, Henry is a well accomplished author of the series called “Hank Zipzer, the

World's Greatest Underachiever.

Jay Leno got mainly C’S and D’S in school. His high school guidance counselor

recommended that he drop out of school. When enrolling into Emerson Collegein Boston the admission officer said he wasn’t what they wanted. He sat

outside the admission officers’ office 12 hours a day 5 days a week until he was

accepted into the University. Jay Leno is most well known for his late night

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fonzie

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitcom

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Days

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fonzie

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitcom

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Days



Whoopi Goldberg, is an outstanding American entertainer, having acted in major motion

picture hits like Ghost, Sister Act I and II and Star Trek: Generations. Whoopi had a lot of difficulty in school, but it was not until she was an adult did she learn that she had dyslexia.

When Whoopi was growing up, she remembers being called dumb and stupid because she hada lot of problems reading

16-year-old boy writing

We set out early with Intent to Run round the sd. Land but being taken in a Rain &it Increasing very fast obliged usto return. It clearning about one o'Clock & our time being too Precious to Loose we a second time ventured out &

Worked hard till Night & then returned to pEnningtons we got our Suppoers & was Lighted in to a Room & I not

being so good a Woodsman as the rest of my Company striped my slef very orderly & went in to the Bed as theycall'd it when to my Surprize I found it to be northing but a Little Straw-matted together without Sheets or any thing

else but only on Thread Bear blanket with double its Weight of Vermin such as Lice Feas & c. Had we not have beenvery Tired, Ia, sure we should not have slep'd much that night. I made a Promise not to Sleep so from that time

forward chusing rather to sleep in the open Air before a fire as will Appear hereafter."

It is interesting to note that this is an example from the writing of the first president of

the United States; George Washington who professionals believe was dyslexic.



Beethoven: Composer: Was deaf when he composed his 9th

symphony.

Walt Disney: had a learning disability.

Nelson Rockefeller: former Vice President: had a learning

disability

Franklin D. Roosevelt: Roosevelt had Polio, was governor of New

York State then elected President of the United States for 4 terms.

Robert M. Hensel: Disability Advocate, Poet & 2x World record

holder was born with Spina- bifida



Stevie

Wonder

- blindedas a child, world famous pianist and singer.

Sudha Chandran: This brave lady dances with a Jaipur foot. She

has acted in a movie on classical dance called "Nache Mayuri" &

today acts in a variety of TV serials.

For everyone listed as "famous", there are thousands -millions, even - of people with disabilities who are quite

competent in the jobs we do. Our value as people is not limited

to the economic wealth which we produce. Every human,

whether disabled or not, is a unique and valuable individual.

Parents, children, care takers, volunteers and amateurs (i.e.

unpaid enthusiasts) are not paid for the work they do, but thatcertainly doesn't mean they are of no value to society!

famous persons with disabilities

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