Neurobiology of Creativity in Dyslexia: Art as a Tool for Learning

During the 2024 National Dyslexia Week, the link between art and neurobiology is explored, focusing on how creative processes occur in the brain, especially for individuals with specific learning disorders. The article features the experience of Matilde, a person with a learning disorder, whose poetic words express emotions like pain and anger. The Fondazione Irene Ets, an institute specializing in learning, supports such individuals through art therapy. The foundation's permanent project "di-SEGNI senza DI" uses art therapy to help children find their authentic sign—graphic, pictorial, plastic, or corporeal—and develop creative, intellectual, motor, and emotional skills. The project starts with scribbling, a free and spontaneous act that bypasses formal drawing rules. The article references poet Giorgio Caproni, who used repetitive verses to process his mother's death. Cognitive linguist George Lakoff's work is cited to explain that metaphor is fundamental to thought, not just rhetoric. People with neurodivergence may struggle with literal metaphor comprehension but excel at creating new visual metaphors. Artistic expression involves divergent thinking, activating prefrontal and limbic brain areas, and releasing neurotransmitters like oxytocin and dopamine. Art serves as an effective pedagogical tool for individualized learning.