About Dyslexia
What are the signs/symptoms of dyslexia?
Fluent reading depends on learning to translate the
visual form of letters and their order in words (orthography) into the
sounds that they represent (phonology). Impaired ability to do this
causes reading difficulties (developmental dyslexia), and this is
extremely common, affecting up to
10% of the population. Developmental dyslexia blights children’s
lives. They lose self confidence and often become miserable and
depressed; all too often their hopeless frustration provokes them into
delinquency and violence.
The most important symptom is much worse
reading
than expected from other abilities, particularly when reading out loud. Other problems include losing the place on a
page, reading letters or words in the wrong or reversed order (eg 'd'
as 'b'
and 'p' as 'q', 'was' as 'saw'), mixing
up numbers (eg 14 for 41, 6 for 9), exceptionally poor spelling, taking
much
longer than others to read a page, difficulty with handwriting.
Often
also dyslexics are late to develop clear speech;they had difficulty
pronouncing
certain words; they find it difficult to tell the difference
between certain
sounds; they are slow to develop fine motor skills (such as holding and
using a
pen properly); they struggle to learn the alphabet, months of the year
or simple
arithmetic; they have difficulty remembering phone numbers.
They find it hard to get
started on a report, essay or letter; they tend to confuse left with
right; they tend to have difficulty remembering instructions; they
frequently mix up
dates and times and miss appointments.
Lastly father or
mother or other close relative often had similar difficulties and they
and their family
have a tendency to auto-immune problems - allergies, asthma, eczema etc.
Common symptoms are therefore:
- Poor reading compared to good general ability.
- Slow to learn to speak; poor at rhyming; mispronouncing words;
not noticing small differences between word sounds.
- Letter and number reversals.
- Letters appear to blur and move around and get in the wrong order.
- Bizarre spelling, same word spelt several different ways on the
same page; spelling learnt one day forgotten the next.
- Slow at learning letters, letter sounds, alphabet, colours, days
of week, months of year, multiplication tables.
- Hatred of reading aloud.
- Difficulty copying from blackboard.
- Difficulty concentrating.
- Poor coordination.
- Confusing left and right.
- Directions and thinking missequenced.
- Family members experienced difficulty learning to read or
spell when they were at school.
- Tendency to allergies,eczema, asthma etc.
