Dyslexia is a learning disability that primarily results in significant difficulties with the brains ability to process written language and graphic symbols. This difficulty in processing written words is not due to other causes such as impairments in vision or hearing, intellectual disability or from lack of educational opportunities to learn to read.
1. Dyslexia in Children
Children who have dyslexia are unable to attain the literacy skills expected based on their normal intellectual ability. In actual fact most people who are dyslexic are of average to above average intelligence. Some people with dyslexia are highly intelligent and can be gifted in other academic areas. Children with dyslexia may demonstrate problems in any of the areas of reading, writing, spelling or mathematical calculations.
In Australia it is estimated that 16% of the population have dyslexia. The causes of dyslexia are neurobiological and genetic. This means that you are born with this difficulty to learn to read and write and other people in your family or in previous generations have probably had the same difficulty.
A dyslexia diagnosis typically has to be completed privately as it is a lengthy and expensive assessment. A dyslexia diagnosis will require a thorough assessment which would probably include a psychological or psychometric assessment (intelligence testing), educational assessment and a speech and language assessment.
Dyslexia Indicators and Signs
The following are a list of possible indicators. However they are simply a guide and a thorough examination is required to determine if the child has dyslexia.
2. Pre-school.
Possible Language Indicators:
- Has persistent jumbled phrases, e.g. "cobbler's club" for "toddler's club"
- Difficulties with saying or repeating multisyllabic words eg. Hippopotamus becomes pippopoma
- Use of substitute words e.g. 'lampshade' for 'lamppost'
- Inability to remember the label for known objects, e.g. 'table, chair'
- Difficulty learning nursery rhymes and rhyming words, e.g. 'cat, mat, sat'
- May have later than expected speech development (this occurs in some cases but not all
Non-language Indicators.
- May have walked early but did not crawl - was a 'bottom shuffler' or 'tummy wriggler'
- Persistent difficulties in getting dressed efficiently and putting shoes on the correct feet
- Difficulties with doing buttons and zips (skills that require integration of right and left side of the body)
- Enjoys being read to but shows no interest in letters or words
- Is often accused of not listening or paying attention
- Maybe perceived as being 'clumsy' with evidence of tripping, bumping into things and falling over
- Difficulty with catching, kicking or throwing a ball; with hopping and/or skipping. Perhaps takes longer to learn to ride a bike
- Difficulty with clapping a simple rhythm
3. Primary School Indicators.
- Letter and number reversals 'b' and 'd' confusion or required significant input to differentiate 'b' and 'd'
- Has difficulty remembering days of the week or months of the year
- Has difficulty remembering tables, alphabet, etc
- Leaves letters out of words or puts them in the wrong order
- Still occasionally confuses words such as 'no/on'
- Still needs to use fingers or marks on paper to make simple calculations
- Poor concentration
- Difficulty in identifying left from right and may have a poor sense of direction
- Has problems understanding what he/she has read
- Takes longer than average to do written work
- Problems processing language at speed
- Continued difficulty with tying shoe laces, tie, dressing
Computer programs that support children with reading and spelling problems
Organizations such as Dyslexia-Speld Foundation offer support to parents, children and educators of children with dyslexia. They have a calendar of workshops and have an online shop which sells computer programs that support children with reading and spelling problems. An example of such successful programs is the multisensory reading and spelling computer program Wordshark 4 or the phonological processing program Earobics (particularly useful for children with auditory processing difficulties). Activities target listening, interpreting and discriminating speech sounds, words and rhymes with increasing levels of background noise.
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