Dyslexia

• The highly verbal five-year-old who can’t master the alphabet.
• The bright, creative seven-year-old who has not grasped reading.
• The teenager whose mediocre grades are blamed on “lack of motivation”.
• The college student who scraped by in high school and now finds herself in over her head.

What these otherwise bright, sociable young people have in common is a disability which makes learning in the “usual” way difficult.

Our educational system relies mainly on reading and writing to convey information and measure achievement, so dyslexics struggle in the system. Before the invention of written language, dyslexia didn’t exist. People with the gift of dyslexia were probably the custodians of oral history because of their excellent ability to memorise and transmit the spoken word.

Dyslexia can be viewed as  a different kind of mental process. Very often it is a gifted mind, but it is a mind that is physiologically different. This is not a defect in the true sense, but a difference in the way information is processed by a brain that is,  for all intents and purposes, normal. Difficulties understanding the basic correspondence between symbols (such as letters) and their sounds lead to subtle miscues in the organisation of cognitive systems in the brain of the Dyslexic. These miscues are present at birth and are influenced to some degree by heredity.

Thus Dyslexia is “a developmental disorder marked by difficulty in learning to read, write, and do math despite adequate intelligence, conventional instruction, and socio-cultural opportunity.” This means, a dyslexic is a person who has a normal or above average IQ but is severely below their expected reading, writing, and/or math level based upon their overall intelligence. This person has received a normal education yet still falls below expectation.

The manifestations of dyslexia are two-fold. On one hand a child with a dyslexic mind will have trouble from the very beginning learning to understand speech and make himself understood. Because his mind cannot easily recall words, the dyslexic child may have to describe what he wants. E.g the child may say “I want that thing we use to write with…” instead of asking for a pencil. The mind of a dyslexic child will often have trouble sequencing, so the words will get twisted — “basgetti, mellow, aminals” or spoken in the wrong order, “please up hurry!”

When a child enters school he may struggle with the positioning of  letters that distinguishes a “p” from a “d” from a “b.” “Was” becomes “saw,” “pet” can be read as “bet.” Even in upper grades, the dyslexic mind may read “nuclear” as “unclear.” What makes dyslexia difficult to recognise is that many of its characteristics are a  natural part of the maturing process of young children. It is when a child gets “stuck” in these stages and they last longer than normal, that parents and teachers need to recognise a potential difficulty.

Often the child appears to be lazy, not trying hard enough, or just slow. In fact, the dyslexic child’s mind is working harder to fill in the gaps between what he actually sees, hears and feels in the outer world, and how he thinks about these things in his head and puts them into words. The dyslexic mind needs more help in sorting, recognising, and organising the raw materials of language for reading and spelling. Some “red flag” behaviours that may indicate that a dyslexic mind is at work are:

• Avoiding difficult tasks, especially if they involve reading, writing or spelling.
• Spending an inordinate amount of time on tasks or not finishing assignments.
• Propping his head up when writing.
• Guessing when she doesn’t know a word.
• Knowing a word one day but forgetting it the next.
• Mixing cursive with manuscript letters.
• Having a vocabulary which exceeds his reading ability.
• Understanding math conceptually, but having difficulty reading and writing problems.
• Having a wide spread between performance and verbal scores on standardised tests.
• Acting inappropriately or demanding excessive attention.

 On the other hand the dyslexic mind may have tremendous creative ability that allows a child to sing or play an instrument easily or at an early age. The child with a dyslexic mind may be able to build whole cities with tiny interlocking blocks and no directions, or solve three-dimensional puzzles without difficulty. Many of our most gifted athletes have dyslexic minds that can “see” the entire field of play and the relative position of all the players simultaneously.

• Family history of reading problems; 
• no enjoyment of reading as a leisure activity;
• Specific problems in reading that include
  • pronouncing new words,
  • difficulty distinguishing similarities and differences in words (no for on), and
  • difficulty discriminating differences in letter sound (pin, pen)
  • reversal of words and letters,
  • disorganisation of word order,
  • poor reading comprehension, and
  • difficulty applying what has been read to social or learning situations.
• problems of spelling, and grammar 
• developmental history of problems in coordination and left/right determination
• poor visual memory for language symobols;
• auditory language difficulties in word finding, fluency, meaning, or sequence;
• difficulty transferring information from what is heard to what is seen and vice versa in a child with an average or above average IQ

Because they are visual thinkers, dyslexics are often confused by letters, symbols and written words. Often, their minds do not even perceive the print on the page accurately or consistently. As they do not “see” the letters and words correctly, they experience frustration  when they try to learn to read and write.