Dyslexia

Related: , More TagsAdults with learning disabilities, Children with Learning Disabilities, Dyslexia, School, Symptoms, Fewer Tags

by Eileen Bailey
Friday, March 20, 2009

Dyslexia is a learning disability that is most commonly known for impairing a person's ability to read. Although most people with dyslexia are average to above average intelligence, their reading level may be well below what would be typical for their chronological age.

Dyslexia can cause difficulties in: 

• Reading
• Spelling
• Manipulation of sounds (phonics)
• Rapid visual-verbal processing 

Often, when dyslexia is discovered early and educational interventions are put into place, individuals make good progress and can learn to read and write. Dyslexia, however, can range from mild to severe. Symptoms of this learning disability may be different in each person. Although the most well known sign of dyslexia is writing letters backwards, such as writing a "d" instead of a "b", there are many areas of a child's educational life that may be impacted by dyslexia.

Signs of Dyslexia

Younger children may show signs of dyslexia such as: 

• Difficulty with rhyming words
• Mispronouncing words or talking like a baby
• Problems with learning letters or remembering the names of letters or of associating a letter with a specific sound
• Difficulty with phonics or breaking down words into sounds
• Inability to sound out words
• Avoiding reading tasks 

As children get older, they may develop strategies to help them compensate but may still have problems with organizing writing assignments, completing math operations or learning number facts, reading comprehension or completing long reading assignments.

Dyslexia is a life long disability, someone does not "grow out" of dyslexia. When it is not identified, problems in reading and comprehension can continue into adulthood. Although many adults may have developed strategies to cope with symptoms of dyslexia by the time they have reached adulthood, they may still have problems with daily life skills such as filling in forms, reading, taking phone messages, and following rapid conversations.

Diagnosing Dyslexia

A specialist makes a diagnosis of dyslexia. Normally, parents will request an evaluation from the school. School psychologists, however, are required to test a child to determine if special education services are required. They are not required, and do not often, test for specific learning disabilities. Many children with dyslexia do not qualify for special education services and may never be diagnosed. Specialists that do test for specific learning disabilities use a variety of tests, sometimes as many as 10 or 12 different evaluations to determine if a child has dyslexia. Some of the ways a child may be evaluated include their ability to read nonsense words (because children with dyslexia have a difficult time breaking down or sounding out words, trying to read a word they have not seen, such as "skilp" may cause great difficulty), writing down things that require memorization, reading fluency, and an IQ test (to determine if reading level is below what is expected for a person's intellectual abilities).