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Before we go into the details of understanding dyslexia, you should know that it is not just about reading. Many children and adults are affected by this condition. By increasing our understanding and early identification, we can help young people exhibit signs of this disorder.
Dyslexia is a complex condition that often makes it challenging to break spoken language down into its component parts. This, in turn, complicates reading and spelling. It can manifest in different ways for children and adults. Each of them require a different set of strategies and accommodations.
Types of Dyslexia: Differentiating The Types
This dysfunction is not the same as non-verbal learning disorder. While this disorder itself doesn't have any diagnostic subtypes, researchers and practitioners may characterize people with specific symptoms into types. Some researchers note three types:
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1) Phonological
As the name suggests, this types affects an individual's phonological skills. People with this dysfunction often read words by sight. They may also experience difficulty processing sounds associated with reading and spelling. Phonological therapy may be useful to manage this condition.
2) Surface
This unique type of dyslexia affects a person's visual memory for reading and spelling. It may make it difficult for individuals with dyslexia to remember sight words. People with this dysfunction have the ability to decode. Remember, that making sense of information is not a single step process. However, people with this disorder, do this slowly.
3) Letter Position
Very interestingly, in this disorder letters seem to move within a word. This affects reading high frequency words with similar spellings such as, then and than or form and from. Individuals with this disorder may also have difficulty with words that have more than one of the same letters, such as diver and driver.
Signs of Dyslexia: How To Identify?
Did you know that while there is a diagnosis for dyslexia, no two individuals with it present precisely the same way? It exists on a continuum of severity and can impact people differently, even within the same family. While decoding may be a struggle for one child with dyslexia, for another, spelling may be a focus, etc.
There are also secondary consequences of dyslexia that we can not overlook. This leads many educators to elaborate their understanding of the dyslexic profile better so that they can determine which instructional path will best serve the child along with the social-emotional journey.
A few everyday signs of dyslexia in adults are that you may spend hours procrastinating and so work even longer hours than you already do as a way of compensation. You may feel scared to take on new tasks and you feel useless at everything. This would mean that you don’t believe you are good enough for your dream job and so you stay getting underpaid in your current job.
It allows even educators to be diagnostic in their approach to working with students and makes them think beyond the idea that this dysfunction only impacts reading.
Treatments That Work For The Condition
Even when this disorder presents unique challenges, by following treatment guidelines you can improve functioning. There is currently no cure for dyslexia. Each case is different, so each treatment plan will be different. While there is also no official treatment, there are lots of ways that you can help yourself or a child overcome the challenges that it brings them.
This can be managed using educational approaches and techniques. One aspect of this can involve helping a child to use their senses to learn, for example, reading out loud or tracing with a finger. An early diagnosis is important as this gives a child or even an adult the best chance of getting the help they need.
Always remember to celebrate strengths. While children may find learning to read difficult, they are often gifted in other ways, such as creatively or mathematically. This disorder can bring challenges, but it doesn’t need to stop children from achieving great things.
The more we seek to learn, the better we can provide appropriate services to help all children and adults meet their potential. By stigmatizing, we reduce their opportunities to seek appropriate help and treatment. Whether it is dyslexia in adults or in children, each sub-group deserves the right attention and care.
While dyslexia is now being more widely identified than it was for previous generations, the approaches for dealing with it are not keeping up with the latest understanding of neuroscience. However, as long as it is progressing, there remains hope.
Janvi Kapur is a counselor with a Master's degree in applied psychology with a specialization in clinical psychology.
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