What is Dyslexia?

What is Dyslexia?

Dyslexia is a language-based disability in which a person has trouble understanding written words. It may also be referred to as a reading disability or reading disorder. The core difficulty is with word recognition and reading fluency, spelling, and writing. 

What are the common features of dyslexia?

  • Difficulty spelling for no apparent reason.
  • The child may be intelligent, able to achieve well in other areas and be exposed to the same education as others, but is unable to read at the expected level.
  • Difficulties with comprehension
  • Difficulties identifying words. 

Common difficulties often experienced by those with dyslexia:

Preschool Children:

  • Delayed language and speech production.
  • Producing speech sounds and pronouncing words.
  • Learning rhymes and identifying rhymes.
  • Learning shapes and colors.
  • May have difficulty writing his/her own name.
  • Re-telling a sequence of events or a story in the correct order.

School Children:

  • Spelling.
  • Reversing numbers and letters.
  • Left right discrimination.
  • Organization.
  • Telling time.
  • Writing by hand and copying things accurately from the board to paper.
  • Remembering or understanding what they just read.
  • Remembering or understanding what they have just heard.
  • Repeating what they have just been told.
  • Writing down what they think.
  • Understanding and following instructions.

Management strategies that support children with dyslexia (at preschool, school and/or home):

  • Allow extra time to complete work (to take into account the extra time it takes to read and interpret the information).
  • More repeated exposure to the same task than typical.
  • Using visual cues rather than long verbal instructions.
  • Using visual prompts wherever possible (i.e. pictures, not word lists, for organization).
  • Continued practice of mastered (familiar) skills, rather than simply moving on to new tasks without maintaining the old.

Occupational Therapy approaches and activities that can support the child with dyslexia or their carers include:

  • Multi-sensory approach: Using a multi-sensory approach to learning (i.e. using as many different senses as possible such as seeing, listening, doing and speaking).
  • Visual prompts: Providing visual prompts for both instructions and organization.
  • Visually sequencing tasks (or components within a task) using visual cues.
  • Visual strategies to assist with reading and spelling (e.g. color coding paper size according to letter size).
  • Visual modeling rather than giving a verbal instruction.
  • Letter formation practice: Teach explicit formation and do repeated practice of letter to help build muscle memory, rather than rely on visual skills.

Speech Therapy approaches and activities that can support the child with dyslexia or their carers include:

  • Speech and language assessment: Assessing the child’s skill in the areas of emergent literacy which include: speech sound awareness and memory; vocabulary use and knowledge; listening comprehension; processing and understanding sentences; using words and sentences; conversational skills; oral story telling skills; knowledge of letter symbols and encoding and decoding letters and sounds.
  • Phonological Awareness: Developing phonological awareness skills (e.g. syllable segmentation, rhyming, identifying sounds in words).
  • Developing language: Focusing on oral language skills which may not be fully developed.
  • Letter and sound knowledge: Working on letter/sound identification.
  • Visual strategies to assist with spelling out words and spelling (e.g. colored blocks to represent consonants and vowels).

Why should I seek therapy for my child with dyslexia?

Diagnosis alone is not the solution. It simply opens the door to getting the help that is needed by arming all involved with the relevant information.  If left untreated the child with dyslexia may have difficulties with:

  • Following instructions within the home or school environment.
  • Vocabulary whereby a child cannot clearly get their message across due to limited word knowledge.
  • Self esteem and confidence when they realize their skills do not match their peers.
  • Fine motor skills (e.g. writing, drawing and cutting) due to poor core stability, meaning they do not have a strong base to support the use of their arms and hands.
  • Self regulation and behavior, as the child is unable to regulate themselves appropriately to settle and attend to a task for extended periods of time.
  • Accessing the curriculum because they are unable to attend to tasks long enough to complete assessment criteria.
    • Academic performance: Developing literacy skills such as reading and writing and coping in the academic environment.
    • Academic assessment: Completing tests, exams and academic tasks in higher education.
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