Dyslexia - Spotting The Signs

       

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The word Dyslexia comes from Greek language and roughly translated means difficulty with words. Dyslexics tend to have problems with reading and spelling but this can be overcome with specialist teaching which targets the problem So how can you tell if your child or someone else is dyslexic? Here are a few quick pointers:

1 - Does it run in the family?

Often learning difficulties can run in the family. If you have a family history of dyslexia or learning/reading difficulties then there is a possibility that you may have it yourself.

2 - Confusion with directions

Many dyslexics often struggle with directional words and can easily get confused between left and right, up and down and in and out. A close friend of mine who has dyslexia struggled when learning to drive as she kept on getting confused between her left and right. However this was easily solved by her driving instructor pointing out which way to turn.

3 - Difficulties with sequences

This usually manifests itself as difficulties with coloured sequences to start with but can later take the form of difficulties with months of the year, days of the week and the alphabet.

4 - Reoccurring spelling mistakes

It is obvious that dyslexics have problems with spelling but there are usually patterns that can be seen that hint at dyslexia. If someone makes a spelling mistake in a piece of text they've written this mistake is usually continued throughout the text. Dyslexics have a tendency to spell the same word wrong in a number of different ways throughout a piece of text. Dyslexics also have problems with similar sounding and looking letters. Letters such as d and t which sound fairly similar can cause a lot of confusion and words with similar shapes such as b and d are often confused.

5 - Co-ordination problems

Dyslexics often tend to be clumsy and often trip or bump into things. They also tend to have problems with catching and kicking balls as well as learning to tie their shoe laces and can struggle when dressing themselves.

People who suffer from dyslexia are by no means unintelligent, in fact some of the greatest minds in history such as Albert Einstein and Sir Isaac Newton were dyslexic. The problem with dyslexia is that if it goes unnoticed and untreated it can lead to self esteem issues and poor self image. Dyslexics can often be left behind at school because they are not taught in the way that they need to be and they are often accused of not paying attention and not listening. This can lead to further behaviour problems and is why it is important for a child who is showing symptoms of dyslexia to be assessed by an educational psychologist. This can be done by contacting your local education authority or you can be referred via the child's school.

Appleford is one of the top UK dyslexia schools, it is a co-educational day and boarding school in Wiltshire UK for children aged 7-13 years with dyslexia and associated learning difficulties which offers a whole school approach to the issues of dyslexia.

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Causes And Treatments For Dyslexia

       

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For those of us who don't suffer from this puzzling disease, it is hard to imagine how such a thing is even possible. We take a simple thing like reading so for granted. And yet there are those for whom reading is an adventure in every sense of the word. If you're wondering what causes Dyslexia, or even what it is, this is an article that you'll probably want to read. You'll also discover treatments that are used for people who suffer from dyslexia. Fortunately, there is hope.

For those who aren't quite sure what dyslexia is, it's a disease where people have trouble understanding the written word. This usually shows up very early in life when we are children. The bigger problem with this disease is that in our modern society, we learn by reading. Therefore, if we have trouble reading, we then have trouble learning, which in turn leads to more difficulty in reading because we can't learn. It becomes a vicious cycle.

So, just what are the symptoms of somebody who has dyslexia? Well, the most common symptom is the reversing of words when reading. For example, given this short sentence, "I went to the store." a person with dyslexia may read it as "I to went store the" or possibly some other combination of those words. This will vary from person to person. The point is, when you're reading sentences not as they've been intended, it is very difficult to get the true meaning of those sentences and learn from them. Also, there are other symptoms such as mixing up letters in a word or even reading from right to left. No two people will have the same symptoms.

So, what causes dyslexia? While nobody is 100% certain, it appears, at least from the research that has been done, that dyslexia is caused by a genetic disorder of the brain. The brain of a person who suffers from dyslexia works differently than what we would call a "normal" brain. More importantly, it appears that most children who suffer from dyslexia have parents or grandparents who also suffered from learning disabilities. Therefore, it appears that this problem is inherited.

Diagnosing dyslexia is actually very easy. If your child is having difficulty learning or reading or both, there are simple tests that can be done to determine if your child is indeed dyslexic. Sentence Verification Tests (SVT) are used to determine if a child is reversing of mixing up the words in a sentence. These tests are very reliable and accurate.

There is no drug to treat dyslexia. Dyslexia is treated via education and tools that are used to get the child to rearrange the words correctly in their brain so that they can understand what they are reading. There are a variety of methods that professionals use in order to accomplish this. Recently, in Great Britain, new exercises to stimulate parts of the brain have shown to be very effective.

Many advances have been made in this area and children who suffer from dyslexia have excellent chances to lead normal and productive lives if this problem is caught early. So if your child shows difficulty learning, take him or her to be tested immediately.

To YOUR Health,

Steve Wagner

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Dyslexia - the Building Blocks of Learning

       

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Introduction Dyslexia, a specific difficulty with the learning of literacy skills, is the most common and best-defined learning disability. Moreover, after thirty years of steadily expanding research of excellent quality, it is the condition which - for sufferers and professionals alike - has made the most progress in identification and remediation. There is now good agreement about:

1. the value of early identification 2. the utility of structured, multisensory, cumulative teaching methods 3. the support structures that need to be maintained throughout academic life, after the period of intensive tuition is past.

This short article will look at this sequence, as well as the area where disagreement remains, essentially about the value of IQ in psychological assessment - or the so-called discrepancy definition.

Early identification Thus far, there are nine genes that are known to be responsible for dyslexia and, theoretically, more are needed. Though dyslexic tendencies, inherited, may not always be fully expressed in children, there is a multiplied risk when there is some dyslexia on both sides of the family.

Because dyslexia is thought of as a species of language disorder, this development is most often seen in delayed or anomalous speech development in the pre-school years. For instance, children may muddle the constituent sounds or sequences of sounds in words - car park = par cark, spaghetti = basgetti - and may not be interested in books and nursery rhymes.

From the first day of school, young children may start to feel that this place is not for them; and, even if they settle well, early experience of being unable to do certain things may be baffling, disappointing and corrosive to them. A lowering of self-esteem may set in and prove very hard to reverse. It is important to emphasise that these trends are usually well-established by the age of seven.

The earlier the age at which the problem is accurately identified and skilfully addressed, the better the outcome.

Professional assessment is the first step towards clarifying the nature of the difficulty. Educational psychologists are scarce, but nowadays many specialist teachers are trained to use good quality tests with children and adults. An early indication of the extent and severity of any literacy-learning problem is valuable. Specialist teaching Following a positive identification of dyslexia, individual specialist tuition should be sought for the child (or adult). This is best delivered by a specially trained teacher, one holding a postgraduate diploma in dyslexia from an accredited course, who will be able to build on the psychological assessment and review progress thereafter.

Typically, there is an emphasis on the foundation elements - letter shapes, sounds and combinations - in alphabetic literacy. These may be shaky even if the individual appears to have left this stage behind, so a return to secure basic structures is often a feature of an individual learning programme. Each structure of level is secured through practice and repetition before another is added. These building blocks create an edifice of skills that remains secure lifelong, even if underlying problems - of limited short-term memory and slow processing - remain.

Continuing support After progress is made with fundamental phonics and morphology, the pupil may be able to resume normal classroom and curriculum progress without continuing tuition. Nevertheless, it behoves teachers to continue to be aware, as the pupil progresses to secondary school, of the accommodations in the classroom that might lighten the load:

1. Keep instructions short and issue them one at a time. 2. Break down longer instructions into smaller chunks. 3. Repeat key words and phrases. 4. Allow time for processing - he or she may need extra time to think through what has been said. 5. Check that the pupil has understood - by asking him or her to retell what they have to do (not in public): children should not be allowed to become dependent on their friends for information. 6. If a child is sitting close to the teacher, for instance near the front of the class, making such a check discreetly is much easier. 7. Tasks involving codes and sequences, such as copying information from the board or transferring from one sheet to another, may pose problems. 8. If possible, the need to copy should be eliminated altogether, including by the provision of worksheets and photocopies of work (e.g. sentences to be completed) or lists of instructions for homework. 9. When questioned, children with processing difficulties may take longer to find words and retrieve what they want to say, necessitating some patience on the part of the teacher and the class. 10. The pupil may need a dictaphone to get key information down when taking notes further up the school.

This awareness is particularly important as the individual progresses through secondary education towards examination-based syllabi, when tuition itself becomes ancillary to the main task of preparing for examinations. At this stage, we relate such support to study skills - note-taking, question reading, essay planning, revision timetables, mind-mapping and so on (see, e.g., Cogan and Fletcher, 2004 ). The provision of access arrangements - extra time, use of computer - may be an important contribution to levelling the playing field up to, and including, further and higher education.

The logic of assessment The use of intelligence measures as an integral part of psychological assessment remains somewhat controversial, but this may have to do with the perceived unfairness of nature in assigning different levels of ability to people. The argument against including measures of IQ in assessment relies upon criticisms of the method of evaluating different levels of development in impaired and unimpaired processes. It becomes easier to accept this argument if one sees little relationship between intelligence and learning.

The argument for including intelligence measurement in assessment is so as to be fair with respect to all levels of intellectual ability. Historically, dyslexia has been seen - and still is seen - as a contrast between impaired and unimpaired abilities and IQ is a legitimate by-product of the general survey of skills and abilities that is necessary if an individual assessment is to proceed without assumptions in impartial and neutral fashion. The use of high quality tests makes it possible to obtain objective evidence, impartially evaluated according to explicit criteria.

Tests And Assessments from NFER Nelson

Tests And Assessments from NFER Nelson