Words shape your inner thoughts, emotions, and experience, playing a crucial role in your reading, writing, and spelling abilities.
Difficulties with reading, writing, or spelling may indicate the presence of dyslexia, a learning and processing condition that typically begins before school age and can persist into adulthood.
You may face challenges with spelling simple words, distinguishing between letters with similar shapes, and sounding out new items.
Despite these difficulties, support is available for those with dyslexia, including the services of a dyslexia coach or therapist.
These professionals can help you or your child understand linguistic challenges while identifying and leveraging your unique strengths. Join us as we delve into dyslexia—its signs, causes, and coping strategies.
What Is Dyslexia?
The term dyslexia derives from two parts: ‘dys,’ meaning difficult, and ‘lexia’ referring to words, reading, or language.
In essence, dyslexia is a learning and reading condition that involves challenges with processing verbal and written information.
This condition may also lead to issues with reading comprehension, math, spelling, and writing. As a result, you may face issues processing reading assignments, solving math problems, or writing without errors.
Current estimates indicate that dyslexia affects approximately 3 to 7% of people globally.
Those with dyslexia struggle with processing language due to an inability to identify speech sounds and understand their relationships to letters and sounds.
As a neurodivergent condition, dyslexia results from differences in your brain's language processing areas, influencing how you perceive and engage with the world to interpret language.
Contrary to common misconceptions, dyslexia is not reflective of intelligence, effort, hearing, or vision.
However, dyslexic people may have challenges associating sounds with letters, rhyming, and reading aloud, which can impact your performance in work, academic, social, or home settings.
Importantly, people don’t outgrow dyslexia. Yet, with appropriate accommodations, strategies, and support, dyslexic individuals can thrive.
Signs of Dyslexia
Since dyslexia is a neurodivergent condition, its signs can vary among individuals.
A primary indicator of dyslexia is difficulty decoding words, where you may find it challenging to link letters to the sounds you hear. While some dyslexic individuals may decode words easily, you may still have trouble with comprehension.
The signs of dyslexia can evolve as individuals age, and early detection may be challenging before school age. However, there are identifiable early signs to watch for.
Preschool and Pre-kindergarten Signs of Dyslexia
Common signs that may indicate dyslexia before a child reaches school age include:
Slower acquisition of new words compared to peers.
Speaking the first word later than usual.
Confusing words that sound similar.
Difficulty following multi-step directions.
Struggling to form and pronounce words
Difficulty remembering or naming letters, numbers, or colours.
Trouble learning or participating in nursery rhymes.
School-Age Signs of Dyslexia
As children progress into school, their teachers may be the first to notice dyslexia. Some common signs observed in school-aged children include:
Reading significantly below their developmental age.
Difficulty processing or comprehending spoken language.
Challenges formulating answers to questions
Problems recalling the sequence of words in a sentence
Poor spelling and grammar
Confusing or omitting words while reading aloud.
Difficulty recognizing common or sight words
Struggling to pronounce words, even after sounding them out.
Substituting incorrect words
At this stage, dyslexia may also manifest emotional symptoms, such as anxiety before reading aloud or a reluctance to engage in reading.
Teen and Adult Signs of Dyslexia
Signs of dyslexia may persist into teenage and adult years, and in some cases, individuals are not diagnosed until later in life. Common signs for teens and adults include:
Difficulty reading or spelling.
Omitting parts of longer words during oral reading.
Struggling with reading or writing fluency.
Trouble remembering common abbreviations.
Challenges with grammar.
Mispronouncing names or words.
Spending excessive time on reading and writing tasks
Difficulty summarizing what they have read.
Trouble with understanding jokes or puns.
Frustration when reading aloud to oneself
Anxiety associated with reading out loud
Reluctance to read
These signs may continue from childhood into adolescence and adulthood.
It’s essential to recognize that dyslexia varies in severity, and individuals may display a combination of signs at different intensity levels. If you relate to these experiences, seeking dyslexia support may help you better understand your situation.
Causes of Dyslexia
Researchers have yet to pinpoint a definitive cause of dyslexia, but they believe genetics and environmental factors play a role.
Twin studies suggest that genetics account for up to 70 percent of the likelihood of dyslexia. Therefore, while some cases of dyslexia arise from environmental influences, genetic predisposition is significant.
The potential causes of dyslexia include:
Genetic Factors: Dyslexia is linked to specific genes affecting how the brain processes language and reading. These traits often run in families, meaning that if your parent or sibling is dyslexic, you are more likely to experience it as well. In fact, research indicates that about 40% of siblings of dyslexic individuals also have reading difficulties, and a similar percentage of parents of dyslexic children are dyslexic themselves.
Brain Differences: Brain imaging studies structural differences in the brain of dyslexic individuals compared to those without. These variations occur in areas related to reading and understanding how sounds relate to words.
Environmental Factors: Certain socioeconomic factors can affect the likelihood of an individual being dyslexic. Factors that may increase risk include:
Low socioeconomic status
Stress
Maternal smoking during pregnancy
Maternal infectious diseases
Further research is needed to identify any additional factors that may contribute to dyslexia.
Types of Dyslexia
Dyslexia presents differently based on its type. Commonly characterized as 'dysphonetic' and 'dyseidetic,' these present with distinct symptom patterns.
Dysphonesia
Dysphonesia involves difficulties in processing various speech sounds. Individuals with dysphonetic dyslexia struggle to sound words out.
Dysphonesia also primarily impacts phonics, which can typically affect your spelling. Errors in spelling reflect difficulties in matching sounds to individual letters.
Dyseidesia
In contrast, those with dyseidesia typically have a solid grasp of phonics but struggle with recognizing whole words and spelling.
Individuals with dyseidesia may find understanding written words and reading comprehension particularly challenging, which can make it harder to comprehend spoken language or expand your vocabulary.
These challenges can subsequently impact daily tasks, making it difficult to read and comprehend written documents needed for school or work or even social messages from friends.
Co-Occurring Conditions and Identities with Dyslexia
Dyslexia frequently coexists with various other conditions, contributing to its diverse manifestation among individuals. Some commonly associated conditions include:
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): ADHD is the most prevalent co-occurring condition with dyslexia. According to the International Dyslexia Association (IDA), about 30% of dyslexic individuals are also diagnosed with ADHD. While ADHD does not cause dyslexia, its symptoms, such as inattention, hyperactivity, emotional dysregulation, and impulsivity, can exacerbate the learning challenges associated with dyslexia.
Other Conditions and Identities: Individuals with dyslexia may also be diagnosed with various medical, neurological, and mental health conditions, including anxiety, autism, dyscalculia (math disability), dysgraphia (impaired writing), speech disorders, and language disorders.
Interestingly, neurodivergent individuals are also often more likely to identify as LGBTQ+ or neuroqueer.
Dyslexia Strategies and Support
Addressing dyslexia requires a personalized approach, as different individuals benefit from different strategies and support systems. A multimodal approach, which incorporates multiple different strategies. is typically the most effective method.
This might encompass dyslexia coaching, dyslexia therapy, and lifestyle strategies. Explore each of these approaches below:
Dyslexia Coaching
Dyslexia coaching is similar to ADHD coaching in that it helps individuals live more productive lives—whether at school, work, home, or in relationships.
Coaches assist you in discovering effective management strategies for dyslexia, focusing on building self-awareness and confidence, managing and accommodating your challenges, and developing strategies for success.
Dyslexia Therapy
Dyslexia therapy, or neurodivergent-affirming therapy, emphasizes validating your neurodivergent identity rather than attempting to try to cure or fix dyslexia.
Therapists understand that dyslexic individuals navigate the world differently and value these differences as strengths. They work collaboratively to identify individual challenges and find accommodations that facilitate better management of dyslexia.
Your journey often begins with a free therapy consultation to determine the therapy approach that best suits your needs, which may include dialectical behavioral therapy, internal family systems, somatic therapy, or others.
Dyslexia Strategies
These strategies primarily focus on leveraging your strengths and accommodating your challenges. Many dyslexic individuals view their experience through a neurodivergent lens, recognizing their unique brain differences as strengths, not deficits.
Some common strengths associated with dyslexia include:
Great Problem-Solving Skills: Dyslexics often think creatively to navigate their learning differences. This ability frequently extends to other areas of life.
Strong Visual Observation: Many dyslexic individuals succeed by using visual aids, which enhances your capacity to notice errors in visual information.
High Empathy Levels: With difficulties in reading, dyslexics may have a better ability to recognize body cues and understand a situation better. This may give them the ability to tune into others emotions.
Strong Narrative Memory: You may excel at remembering events by creating stories in your mind. By Dyslexia reported that 84% of dyslexics demonstrate above-average reasoning skills.
Conversational Skills: While reading might be a challenge, many dyslexics excel in spoken communication, engaging in managing conversations effectively.
Ability to See the Big Picture: Dyslexics can group information, recognize patterns, and understand complex data more effectively.
Other strategies for dyslexic individuals may involve:
Consulting a Disability Consultant or Tutor: These professionals can provide tailored strategies to accommodate neurodivergent challenges.
Using Visual Diagrams: Visual aids that minimize text can help convey large amounts of information in a way that is more easy to digest.
Highlighting and Annotating: These strategies can condense crucial information from lengthy pieces of text to enhance comprehension.
Utilizing Audiobooks: Audiobooks can eliminate reading demands and support learning for auditory leaders.
Breaking Up Tasks: Reduce reading overwhelm by breaking text into smaller portions.
Use Dyslexic-Friendly Fonts: Fonts designed for dyslexics, which ease reading difficulties—such as Roboto, Open Sans, Arial, Verdana, and Calibri—typically feature bolder letters and increased space between words.
Book a Free Consultation With Blue Sky Learning
Are you or your child exhibiting signs of dyslexia? Are you seeking coaching or therapy for support?
Consider booking a free 20-minute consultation with a member of the Blue Sky Learning team by emailing hello@blueskylearning.ca or following the link below.
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