Dyslexia
Dyslexia
Signs, Symptoms, Effects, and Treatment
Dyslexia is a term defining a learning disability that impairs a person’s fluency or comprehension in being able to accurately read, and spell, which can manifest itself as a difficulty with auditory short-term memory, and/or rapid naming. It is believed that dyslexia can affect between 5 to 10 percent of a given population although there have been no studies to indicate an accurate percentage.
There are three proposed cognitive subtypes of dyslexia: auditory, visual and intentional. Reading disabilities, or dyslexia, is the most common learning disability, although in research literature it’s considered to be a receptive language-based learning disability.
Adult dyslexics may be able to read with good comprehension, but they tend to read more slowly than non-dyslexics and may perform more poorly in spelling. Dyslexia is not an intellectual disability,
Symptoms
Preschool-aged children
- Possible delays in speech
- Slower learning of new words
- Difficulty in rhyming words, as in nursery rhymes
- Lower knowledge of letters (ABC’s)
- Letter reversal or mirror writing (for example, “Я” instead of “R”)
Early primary school children
- Difficulty learning the alphabet or letters order
- Difficulty with associating sounds with the letters that represent them (sound-symbol correspondence)
- Difficulty identifying or generating rhyming words, or counting syllables in words
- Difficulty segmenting words into individual sounds, or blending sounds to make words
- Difficulty with word retrieval or naming problems
- Difficulty learning to decode written words
- Difficulty distinguishing between similar sounds in words; mixing up sounds in ” for polysyllabic words (auditory discrimination) (for example, “aminal” for animal, “bisghetti spaghetti)
Older primary school children
- Slow or inaccurate reading (although these individuals can read to an extent).
- Very poor spelling.
- Difficulty reading out loud, reading words in the wrong order, skipping words and sometimes saying a word similar to another word.
- Difficulty associating individual words with their correct meanings
- Difficulty with time keeping and concept of time when doing a certain task
- Difficulty with organization skills.
- Children with dyslexia may fail to see (and occasionally to hear) similarities and differences in letters and words, may not recognize the spacing that organizes letters into separate words, and may be unable to sound out the pronunciation of an unfamiliar word.
- Tendencies to omit or add letters or words when writing and reading.
Secondary school children and adults
Some people with dyslexia are able to disguise their weaknesses (even from themselves) and often do acceptably well — or better — at GCSE level. Many students reach higher education before they encounter the threshold at which they are no longer able to compensate for their learning weaknesses.
One common misconception about dyslexia is that dyslexic readers write words backwards or move letters around when reading. In fact, this only occurs in a very small population of dyslexic readers. Dyslexic people are better identified by writing that does not seem to match their level of intelligence from prior observations. Additionally, dyslexic people often substitute similar-looking, but unrelated, words in place of the ones intended (what/want, say/saw, help/held, run/fun, fell/fall, to/too, who/how etc.)
Treatment
There is no cure for dyslexia, but dyslexic individuals can learn to read and write with appropriate educational support. Early intervention is very helpful.
Since stress and anxiety are contributors to a dyslexic’s weaknesses in absorbing information, removing these can assist in improving understanding. When a dyslexic knows that not every reading experience must be onerous, it greatly helps their mental approach to the task.
Recent research suggests that adaptive working memory training was effective in boosting IQ, working memory, and literacy scores in students with dyslexia.
Also using coloured films has been found to show significant improvement in the ability to read.
Also:-
Neurofeedback training – Neurofeedback training is a type of biofeedback that uses electroencephalography to provide a signal that can be used by a person to receive feedback about brain activity. In the case of someone with Dyslexia’s brainwaves indicative of focus and attention can be filtered and used in a real time graph or at Games for Life we use this particular brain wave to move around and control animated characters in a computer game. Kind of like taking your brain to the gym you are exercising your attention by being made aware of it and how to control it. We also use games that improve memory an aspect of which is shown to be a problem with people with Dyslexia.
