Dyslexic actress Whoopi Goldberg has been feted for helping to spread awareness about learning disabilities after struggling with the undiagnosed condition as a child.

The Ghost star was honoured by academics at Vermont's Landmark College in her native New York on Tuesday (29Apr14), when she was handed the school's Luminary Award.

Goldberg admits she was flattered to receive the prize and reveals she often wonders what her life would be like had she been able to attend a school like Landmark, which specialises in teaching students with learning difficulties.

She says, "They're a great school. They're the first college who (sic) takes care of kids who learn differently and, you know, for years and years, people called me stupid and put me in the slow classes and made fun (of me). I have dyslexia and I can't sequence numbers and letters, and when I get tired it gets hard to read, and so these guys have put this college together and it's so magnificent... It's fantastic."

She adds, "I was happy to get this award... I just wish it had been around (when I was younger). I wonder, periodically, what it would have been like to go to college... There is still time (to go back to school), but you know and I know, it ain't gonna happen (sic)!"