A 70-Year Follow-Up of a Childhood Learning Disability—The Case of Fanny Burney

SHAME AND IMPAIRED SELF-ESTEEM ARE WELL-KNOWN consequences of childhood learning disabilities. There is wide agreement on the need to maintain and restore self-esteem by means of relationships until developmental lags remit or until alternate modes of cognition or other avenues for success develop (Bender, 1958); (de Hirsch, 1975); (Eisenberg, 1975); (Klein, 1978); (Silver, 1974); (Weil, 1977). Among the many excellent case reports of children and young adults (Berger and Kennedy, 1975); (Blanchard, 1946); (Bryant, 1964); (Buxbaum, 1964); (Critchley, 1964); (Hellman, 1954); (Mahler, 1942); (Newman et al., 1973); (Pearson, 1952); (Rosen, 1955); (Thompson, 1966); (Walsh, 1966); (Watson et al., 1982), I could find none that extended throughout a lifetime. Therefore I was specially interested in Fanny Burney's description of her own, severe childhood dyslexia, written when she was 74. In her autobiographical account, Frances Burney (later Madame d'Arblay), the first important English woman novelist, vividly portrays the way in which a