Dyslexia

Dyslexia is a learning disability that can affect a person's ability to read. It is a deficit
of a certain degree in recognizing and understanding written texts, printed text or handwritten
texts. At the same time it is characterized by a slow lecturing, burdensome, with blockages in
reading. This deficiency can be detected around the age of 6-7 years old, when reading
acquisition also appears. The child avoids reading and hesitates to read aloud. Children with
dyslexia have difficulty learning, reading; although they go to school, they have at least an
average intelligence and are provided with adequate learning opportunities.
In 1968, the World Federation of Neurologists defined dyslexia as a disease of children,
who, despite going to school, fail to form language skills characteristic of reading and writing,
corresponding to their intellectual capacities.
The child may be frustrated by the difficulty of learning how to read and may have other
problems that mask dyslexia. He may show signs of depression and shows a low self-esteem.
Behavior problems at home or at school are also commonly observed. The child's motivation
decreases dramatically, and he no longer likes school, which seriously jeopardizes school success
if the disease remains untreated. Also, children may have trouble remembering phonemes and
words and reading may become slow and inaccurate. Children with dyslexia have problems with
the correct pronunciation of words, handwriting, planning and organizing, mathematical
operations.
The signs of dyslexia vary according to age. Thus, a preschool child may:
- talk later than other children;
- have greater difficulties than other children in the pronunciation of words. For example, the
child can read "Jig boke “instead of "big joke."
- have trouble learning the alphabet, numbers, days of the week, colors, shapes, may have trouble
writing and reading their own name;
- have difficulty reciting poems from kindergarten or words that rhyme. For example, the child
may not be able to find words that rhyme with the word "place", such as “space” or “face”
- develop later the fine motor skills;
- have difficulty separating sounds into words and in the aggregation of sounds to form words;
A child from kindergarten through fourth grade may:
- have difficulties in reading singular words that are not surrounded by other words;
- learn with difficulty the connection between letters and sounds;
- confuse small words like "in" and "no" or "apple" and "hard";
- make constant reading and spelling errors, such as reversing letters "d" and "b" , may make
word reversals such as upfill/fillup, reversals such as "u" instead of "n" , transpositions such as
"stop" to "post" , make substitutions like "home" to "at home".
A child from the fifth through eighth grade can:
- read at a lower level than expected;
- reverse the sequence of letters such as "stop" to "post";
- learn with difficulty prefixes, suffixes, the root of the words, and other reading and
orthographic writing strategies;
- avoid reading aloud;
- have difficulty with math problems written in words;
- write with difficulty or have illegible handwriting. Usually, grabs a pen or pencil in a weird
way, with all his fist holding it very tight;
- have a bad or slow memory of the facts.
High school students or college students may:
- read very slowly;
- have spelling mistakes and write the same word differently on the same page;
- avoid tests involving writing or reading. Avoid or delay homework that involve reading or
writing;
- have trouble in preparing abstracts or main ideas for classes;
- have an inadequate vocabulary or be unable to store information from reading.
Visual dyslexia is characterized by the reversal of numbers and letters and the inability to
write symbols in the correct order. Auditory dyslexia involves difficulty with sounds or groups
of sounds. Sounds are perceived in a different order or are not heard correctly. Dysgraphia
means the child's difficulty to keep and control the pencil so that he can write correctly
marks on the paper.
The treatment for dyslexia consists in using educational means to increase the ability to
read. Medication and counseling are not used in the treatment of dyslexia. An important part of
treatment is self-education. The sooner the dyslexia is diagnosed and treated, the better are the
results.
Following a study on how children learn how to read, it was shown that a combination of
educational methods is the most effective way to teach children how to read. These methods
include: learning phonetics, ensuring that the learner understand how the letters link and form
sounds (phonemes) in order to form words. Reading aloud under supervision, during which the
student reads aloud with guidance and feedback, is equally important in the development of
fluent reading. The child must thoroughly understand the instructions that are given to him, and
the instructions need to be reproducible or systematic in order to improve the reading skills of the
child.
Even with treatment, dyslexia can remain a chronic disease, persistent that will continue
into adulthood. The benefit of treatment in childhood can improve and maintain the child's
reading skills.