Dyslexia –Frequently Asked
Questions
What Does Dyslexia
Mean?
“Dyslexia”
literally means ‘difficulty with words’ (from the Greek dys
=difficulty and lexis = language/ word). In some countries
like Australia, dyslexia is frequently referred to as a
‘specific learning
disorder’ (SLD) which mainly affects
the development of
reading, processing and language related skills.
How do I know if I’m
Dyslexic?
The main symptoms of dyslexia include difficulty with reading and often with writing spelling, and some aspects of maths.
The most common
characteristic is that people have difficulty reading and
spelling for no apparent reason. The person may be
intelligent, articulate, able to achieve well in other areas and
exposed to the same education as others, but is unable to
read or spell at the expected level.
Dyslexia is often associated with inability to read but some adults with dyslexia have no problems with reading or if they have it is because they take much longer than a non-dyslexic person does to read the same piece of text or they may have to reread the text or question in an exam to fully comprehend.
See also Signs and
Symptoms of Dyslexia
What causes Dyslexia?
Dyslexia is
actually all about how the brain processes the
information at hand. And it is now generally
accepted that dyslexic people seem to process information
in a different way from the rest of the population
When we are born,
we are equipped to survive, reading is a human invention.
At birth there is no real ‘reading centre’ in the brain.
Children must make their own reading centre,
they must fashion new circuits between parts
originally designed to do other things. For the purpose of
reading brains must connect letters to sounds, put sounds
in correct order, put words together into sentences. The
left hemisphere of the brain is mainly
responsible for speech, language processing, and reading
and aactivation in the left
occipital temporal region located behind the left ear is
significantly related to a child’s skill as a
reader. People with dyslexia tend towards the right
hemisphere therefore, it takes longer for the information
for the information to travel. The consequences are that
people with dyslexia have trouble matching the letters and
groups of letters they see to sounds they make. This
difficulty make all the other steps harder. The new
circuits must not only form a specialised circuit just for
reading but to become a fluent reader, the circuit needs to
run lightning-fast, nearly automatic. Because the circuits
run more slowly fluency and
comprehension suffer.
How do people become
Dyslexic?
Dyslexia is likely to be present at birth and the person will have it for life. Much research indicates that a high percentage of cases of dyslexia are hereditary, but it is possible for the condition to occur after birth. You can acquire the symptoms of dyslexia through severe head trauma- alexia
The gene is not
always inherited directly from the parent – sometimes the
parents will have a sibling or immediate relative with the
disorder.
How common is Dyslexia?
Dyslexia is the
most common
and prolific
specific learning disorder for children and
young people in schools and colleges.
It is estimated that Dyslexia affects
between approximately 4% and 10% of the population. It is
not a disease that can be cured and it isn’t a symptom of
low intelligence. Dyslexia can occur in people of all
abilities, and dyslexic people are frequently of average or
above average ability. It is found in all socio-economic
groups and in every country in the world.
My child’s
teacher believes my child has ADHD
but I think that he is Dyslexic
Dyslexia is
considered to be a specific learning disorder and
research has found there is a high probability that
dyslexics will have other Specific
Learning Difficulties or conditions, for example
ASD, dysgraphia, developmental
language disorder, ADHD
or dyspraxia.
In 1998 a study conducted by Kaplan found that 63% of dyslexics tested were also dyspraxic, which would account for poor gross and fine motor control. ADHD is a totally separate and different condition to dyslexia. However research evidence that approximately 30%- 40% of people who are dyslexic also have ADHD
(Willcutt, E. G., & Pennington, B. F. (2000) .Germanò, E., Gagliano, A., & Curatolo, P. (2010))
My Child's Teacher Attributes his Learning Difficulties to his Negative Behaviour
If children and young adults have dyslexia that hasn’t been diagnosed and supported, they may become badly behaved in school and this is often an effective strategy to protect their self-esteem.
Consider the impact of being asked to copy reams from the board every day or being asked to follow a list of instructions when after the first 2 you can’t retain any more. What about being asked to write a story or an essay when you can’t spell or have no idea how to organise your writing? And worse; how about having to stand up and read in front or your peers or being asked to come to the front of the class and write on the board?
Many
students with dyslexia I
have spoken to, or read about, say that they resorted to
behaving badly at school because being told off for bad
behaviour by their teachers was infinitely better than
trying to complete work they knew was impossible, failing
in front of their peers
and being teased of laughed at.
I read an article
by a Headteacher who runs an extremely successful school in
England catering for all children but with a high
percentage of dyslexics. Her enthusiasm to provide a
dyslexia friendly school came about from her own
experiences as a dyslexic. She said that at school, “I
couldn't spell and I couldn't learn from the way they were
delivering the curriculum, which was to do with teachers
talking a lot and writing quickly on the blackboard. We
were expected to take notes and that's the aspect of school
life I found the hardest, so I cheated and lied and became
destructive."
Why wasn’t my Dyslexia picked up
before?
Dyslexia is a permanent disorder
which often goes unnoticed until a child starts school.
Then a child (and later an adult) knows something is wrong
but cannot understand why they find it so hard to cope with
the work that others find so easy. This often results in
stress, lack of confidence and self-esteem.
A dyslexic person’s difficulty is not
visible compared to a person in a wheelchair, for example
and therefore it often goes
unrecognised by teachers,
lecturers and employers. The result can often be that the
person is labelled
“Lazy” or “Slow,” “a daydreamer.”
It is easy to blame a school for not
recognising that a child is
dyslexic. However, teacher training universities cover the
main areas of teaching and a very small proportion of that
time is spent covering “learning disorders/conditions” in general. I taught
for 10 years before I attended my first diploma course
about dyslexia. I knew of dyslexia, had read articles about
it but once I attended the course I realised I didn’t
understand the condition at all. I thought back to a number
of students who were intelligent, able, but I couldn’t bring
their reading and spelling to the level that matched their
age, let alone their ability, no matter how hard I tried
using the conventional teaching methods that worked for all
the other pupils. Once I realised that these methods would
never have worked I felt so guilty and just wanted to
contact them and say, “come back I know where I’ve gone
wrong!” Teacher training colleges and universities then didn’t cover
dyslexia at all. I know that In Australia dyslexia isn’t as
high profile as in countries like America and the UK. When
I run courses for teachers about making their classrooms
“Dyslexia Friendly” many tell me that a lot of the
information I give them is totally new to them.
So it is understandable that teachers may know a
pupil has a difficulty, but be unable to diagnose the
difficulty let alone know how to remediate the symptoms.
That is how an assessment will help. The report will
explain your child’s weaknesses and contain recommendations
for the school to help support your child in class and
individually.
I am worried my employers will find
out I am Dyslexic, what can I do?
Many dyslexic adults have found
effective strategies to cope with their difficulties.
However, at work they may be asked to perform certain tasks
that they find very difficult. Because dyslexics are
normally very creative, good communicators and are able to
think “outside the box” they are often noticed by their
employers and promoted to higher positions. Unfortunately
these positions can place new demands on them and suddenly
their employers wonder why they are experiencing problems.
Even without promotion dyslexic
employees will find certain aspects of their employment
difficult. For example they may read documents more slowly,
find it difficult to retain a lot of information at one
time, have problems filling in forms, confuse sequences of
numbers etc. They may dread having to write anything in
front of their colleagues or being asked to give a
presentation.
Employers may consider that their
employee is careless, for example, when writing reports,
inputting data or making calculations involving money. They
may also feel that the employee is taking more time than
necessary to complete work assignments. They do not
understand that the dyslexic employee needs to read
everything more than once to check for errors.
However there are so many small
changes that companies can make to make life so much easier
for the dyslexic employee. My reports will provide
strategies for coping at work and at home and lists of free
resources to help you. I can also include recommendations
for your employers.
Many companies are now seeking to make the workplace “Dyslexia Friendly” to improve staff retention and productivity. IBM in the United States is an excellent example of this.