He was born and raised in the state of Mississippi (USA). He completed his medical education in the University of Tennessee. After gaining fellowship at the National Hospital in Queen's Square in London in 1957 he then embarked on teaching in Oklahoma Medical School. In the course of his teaching tenure he started evaluating children with dyslexia. He then was considered by many to have pioneered in studying this learning disability that affects a considerable number of people. Dyslexia is a disability in the learning process that affects a person's reading and writing skills, short-term memory, basic arithmetic, sequencing and thought organization, language, and visual and auditory processing. The cause of dyslexia is primarily genetic, probably inherited from generation to generation within families.