When talking about this disoder, most people think of dyslexia as a condition of seeing letters and words backwards, like seeing “b” as “d” and vice versa, or seeing or writing “saw” as “was”.
So how do you define Dyslexia?
Dyslexia is a “specific learning disorder”, with a pattern of learning difficulties characterized by problems with accurate or fluent word recognition, poor decoding, and poor spelling abilities.
Dyslexic people have impairment in reading with difficulty in word reading accuracy, reading rate or fluency, and reading comprehension
Few of the famous personalities with this condition are Picasso, Muhammad Ali, Whoopi Goldberg, Steven Spielberg and Cher.
It affects up to one in five people, where one person might have mild dyslexia while the next person has a profound case of it.
SIgns and Symptoms of Dyslexic people
Few of the most prominent signs and symptoms include:
- trouble connecting letters with sounds
- difficulty recognizing letters in his/her own name
- unable to recognize rhyming patterns like cat, bat and hat. They confuses words that sounds alike for example “tornado” and “volcano”
- slow and messy handwriting
- trouble breaking down spoken words into syllables like “cowboy” into “cow” and “boy”
- may have trouble remembering date, name and telephone numbers
- have trouble completing assingments or tests on time.
- Dyslexic people avoid activities that involve reading, writing or communication.
Impact on life:
It does not only affect the ability to read and write, but it can also affect a person’s memory, multi-tasking, and communication.
- Academic struggles: people with dyslexia have difficulty completing tests and assignments on time. They are unable to keep up with their class and curriculum.
- emotional and psychological effects: children with dyslexia may compare themselves with their friends and siblings of their age, resulting in self-esteem problems
- social challenges: Due to difficulty in social communication, people with dyslexia have difficulty sharing their feelings and ideas and children will avoid participating in their class activities.
- Too much information: It is hard for people with dyslexia to process and keep a list of instructions or information.
- Poor short term memory: Dyslexia affects a person’s short term memory, therefore it can be hard for people to remember important dates, names of people, and the places they visited.
Myths and stereotypes of Dyslexia:
Myth#1: Dyslexic people read and write letters backwards. For example writing “CAT” as “TAC”. That’s incorrect!
Myth#2: Another one is that Dyslexia is just a vision problem. That’s not true! As said above, people with dyslexia have difficulty with reading due to the problem in word identification.
Myth#3 One of the myths is that this condition is not diagnosed until elementary school. It is easier to diagnose dyslexia as the child begins to start reading, writing and communicating,which can be different for everyone.
This condition is found more in boys than in girls. But the truth is that the prevalence of disorder is the same for both.
Final Words:
Dyslexia is untreatable, but a child can live a normal life with proper care and effective techniques.