What Is Dyslexia
In our life, we sometimes meet someone in school or
in the neighborhood who has some kind of problem in reading or writing or in
spelling. These persons are not different from us.
Actually they are intelligent. They are just having
a problem in learning. And this learning difficulty is called Dyslexia. They
can complete their school with the help of some specialized education program
or with extra care with learning in school.
Today I am going to talk about a common problem of
children which is called Dyslexia. I will try to give you all the basic
information about it. The Dyslexia related topics we will learn today are
What is
Dyslexia
Causes and
risk factors
Types
Symptoms
Diagnosis and
Treatment of Dyslexia
So, without any further delay I should start the
post. Let’s start it.
What Is Dyslexia
Dyslexia is a kind of learning disorder which
involves difficulty in reading, spelling or writing. And this problem occurs
because of unable to identify speech sounds and can’t connect this with
learning.
Dyslexia is also called reading disability because
they face trouble to relate letters and words. It mainly affects areas in the
brain that works for the processing of language.
Person who has dyslexia have normal intelligence
and also have normal vision. It is actually a specific learning difficulty not
learning disability in which intelligence is affected.
Dyslexia is actually a lifelong problem and there’s
no cure. But one can face it if he/she gets some help. And famous person had
this problem and they also overcome it. So anyone can beat it. Don’t lose
heart.
Causes of Dyslexia
From above we see that it is a learning difficulty
not a learning disability. So these occur to children and they have difficulty
in learning despite teacher’s motivation and opportunity to learn.
Dyslexia does not occur because of brain damage,
lack of intelligence, mental retardation or because of vision or hearing
problems.
Some researchers discovered that dyslexia is linked
to some genes which affect the areas of our brain that helps to process
language and reading. And some cases of dyslexia are found in families.
Main cause is believed to be the interaction of
both genetic and environment.
Risk Factors
Besides there are some risk factors which is also
need to be mentioned here. These are premature birth or low birth weight, some
individual differences in parts of brain that helps to read and also if mother
drink or take drugs during pregnancy that may create problem in development the
brain fetus.
There is a high risk of children who have dyslexia
to have also attention deficit hyperactivity disorder which is known mainly as
ADHD. And this disorder make difficult to treat dyslexia.
Types of Dyslexia
Now we will get to know what the types of dyslexia
are. There are 3 main types. These are
1.Primary dyslexia
It is actually the most common types and also a
dysfunction of the left side of the brain (cerebral cortex) and it doesn’t
change with age. It also found more in boys than girl and also run through
families or new genetic mutation occurs. These people really find it trouble in
life to complete their education. They get success with the appropriate
education intervention.
2.Secondary or developmental dyslexia
This kind of dyslexia is caused by the brain
developmental problems which occur during the fetal development stage and also
it is more common in boys. This dyslexia diminishes when the child become
mature.
3.Trauma or acquired dyslexia
It occurs if someone gets some kind of brain trauma
or gets injury in the area of brain which helps to read and write. It is not so
common in children.
We should keep in mind that dyslexia is different
from reading difficulties which occur because of vision or hearing problem or
by insufficient teaching.
Symptoms of Dyslexia
There are some common signs and symptoms of
dyslexia which can be found in most children. Actually these symptoms come out
when a child starts school. But some symptoms can occur before school. So it will be divided it into 3 parts to describe the symptoms.
Pre-school children
They can have little interest in learning letters
or words or face many problems in learning this.
Some children will start speech development after
the actual age of starting speech.
They can also have speech problems like instead of
helicopter they say hecilopter.
They also face problems in spoken language to
express themselves.
School going children
They will face problem in spelling. They can have
poor and slow handwriting.
They have a problem in remembering sequence of
things.
They try to avoid reading something.
They will have a below level of reading for the
age.
They can also have problems in learning names and
sounds of letters.
Sometimes they can answer the correct ones but
difficulty in writing this.
Also they get confused with letters like b or d
which to put etc.
In this time most symptoms become clearer. These
children have poor phonological awareness ( which is one kind of ability to
identify that words are made of phonemes and can create new words by
manipulating words).
Teenagers and adult people
Here the symptoms are like the school children
symptoms.
Some mispronounce words.
They have difficulty in reading, spelling and
writing also.
They have difficulty in understanding jokes which
uses phrases.
They spend lot of time to complete a task which
involves reading and writing.
They have difficulty in doing math or learning
other languages.
They also have trouble in memorizing and
summarizing some tasks.
Diagnosis
There is no one test which can diagnose dyslexia.
So, professional people use a number of factors to diagnosis this.
So, one should keep track of child’s development,
educational problems and other medical history which will help professional to
understand the situations.
They will give some psychological test to determine
whether the symptoms are because of anxiety or depression. So it will help to
diagnose. Like Stanford- Binet Intelligence scale.
They will give some questionnaire to answer and
also some reading and writing test to the child. They will give some vision,
hearing and brain tests to diagnose dyslexia.
These are not all things that professional workers
follow in the diagnosis process. There are a lot of other tests also.
Treatment of Dyslexia
There are some treatments which can help to improve
a child who have dyslexia but there is no actual cure for it. If a child is
having a problem of dyslexia then the parents should talk with the teacher
about it.
So the school can take some special education plan
for the child which will take place in the regular classroom. This program will
try to strength the child’s area of weakness.
Computer should be used to teach the child and also
teach phonics. There are some other treatments which can occur outside school.
Like some educational psychologist can help also.
The children who get help in the early years of
their lives can cope with dyslexia. They gain enough capability to read and
write. But if the child who is suffering from it doesn’t get help early then
they will have more difficulty to read and write.
They may lag behind than other children in
academically and may face problem in future life also. So it is responsibility
of parents and teachers to get the best treatment for the child who is
suffering from dyslexia in the early stages.
Dyslexia is a neurodevelopmental disorder. And most
of all we should all have a good attitude towards the child who have this. If
anyone gets early treatment then he/she can cope with this. That is all for
today. Hope that it will help you a little bit to understand dyslexia.
Sources
Post a Comment