Dyslexia is learning disability in reading. Kids with dyslexia might find it challenging to read accurately and fluently. But they could also have trouble with reading comprehension, spelling and math word problems. It’s important to understand that dyslexia is not an intellectual issue. Many of the world’s most accomplished people, like Albert Einstein, have been known to have dyslexia. While the inherent cause of dyslexia is not known, it seems to be genetically linked. About 40 percent of siblings with dyslexia have the same reading issues. And as many as 49 percent of parents who have kids with dyslexia have it too.
Signs and symptoms
A key sign of dyslexia in kids is something called phonemic awareness. Many kids who become diagnosed with dyslexia have trouble matching letters to sounds, preventing them from reading fluently. While this problem can be detected as early as preschool, in other kids, dyslexia isn’t picked up until later on when they have trouble with more complex skills like grammar, reading comprehension, reading fluency, sentence structure and more in-depth writing. Here are more specific signs and symptoms broken out by grade level:
Preschool: Trouble recognizing whether two words rhyme, taking away the beginning sound from a word, learning new words, trouble recognizing letters and matching them to sounds.
Grade school: Trouble taking away the middle sound from a word or blending several sounds to make a word, can’t recognize common sight words, quickly forgets how to spell many of the words she studies, gets tripped up by word problems in math.
Middle School: Makes many spelling errors, frequently has to re-read sentences, reads at a lower academic level.
High School: Often skips over small words when reading, doesn’t read at the expected grade level, prefers multiple-choice over fill in the blank.
How to get diagnosed
The only way to know if your child has dyslexia is to have her fully evaluated, either at school or privately. While the IEP teams at schools can “identify” learning and attention issues, only doctors and clinicians can “diagnose” dyslexia and other learning disabilities.
School evaluations are free. Clinical diagnosis often requires out-of-pocket payment, although health insurance may cover some of it.
The purpose behind a school identification is to determine if a child is eligible for special education, whereas the purpose behind a medical diagnosis is to understand the cause of symptoms to guide decision on treatment.
The support and services your child may receive through school includes how and what students learn. For example, a student who has been identified with a learning disability might get extra time for work or tests and breaks throughout the day. They might also work in smaller groups or a quieter space and be required to do fewer problems on a page.
The range of professionals that can assist a child with dyslexia outside of school include reading specialists, speech-language pathologists, child psychologists, child neuropsychologists, and special education teachers. They employ specific teaching methods such as an approach called Orton-Gillingham (OG), which uses highly structured, sequential and multisensory.
Reading specialists and speech-language pathologists also focus on phonological awareness, an early language skill that’s key to reading. They can also help with decoding, word recognition, spelling and reading fluency. If your child is getting specialized instruction through an IEP at school, it’s likely he’ll be taught these methods as well.
While there are no medications or medical treatments for dyslexia, studies show brain activity in people with dyslexia can change after they get proper tutoring. And scientists are learning more all the time. There is even a typeface -https://themighty.com/2014/11/christian-boer-invents-font-to-help-people-with-dyslexia-read/ - that’s helping dyslexics differentiate more clearly between similar-looking letters. Understood.org is also an invaluable resource for children and people with dyslexia. But above all, early detection is one of the best things you can do for a child with dyslexia.
