Important Information about Dyslexia

According to the International Dyslexia Association, “The exact causes of dyslexia are still not completely clear, but anatomical and brain imagery studies show differences in the way the brain of a person with dyslexia develops and functions. Moreover, most people with dyslexia have been found to have problems with identifying the separate speech sounds within a word and/or learning how letters represent those sounds, a key factor in their reading difficulties."

Dyslexia is not due to either lack of intelligence or desire to learn; with appropriate teaching methods, students with dyslexia can learn successfully. Dyslexia can range between mild, moderate, severe, and profound (IDA, 2021).

Sometimes a child’s diagnosis is wrong or delayed because she/he fails to demonstrate one or more of the presumed “symptoms” (IDA, 2021).

MYTH: Reading disabilities are caused by visual perception problems

TRUTH: Backward writing and reversal of letters and words are common in the early stages of writing development among dyslexia and nondyslexic children. The current consensus based on a large body of research (e.g., Lyon et al., 2003; Morris et al., 1998; Rayner et al., 2001; Wagner & Torgesen, 1987) is that dyslexia is best characterized as a problem with language processing at the phoneme level, not a problem with visual processing.

MYTH: Students with dyslexia have a lower level of intelligence.

TRUTH: Individuals with dyslexia do not have a lower level of intelligence. In fact, more often than not, the complete opposite is true (International Dyslexia Association, 2021).

MYTH: If you just give them enough time, children will outgrow dyslexia.

TRUTH: There is no evidence that dyslexia is a problem that can be outgrown. There is, however, strong evidence that children with reading problems show a continuing persistent deficit in their reading rather than just developing later than average children (Francis et al., 1996). More strong evidence shows that children with dyslexia continue to experience reading problems into adolescence and adulthood (Shaywitz et al., 1999; 2003).

MYTH: More boys than girls have dyslexia.

TRUTH: Longitudinal research shows that as many girls as boys are affected by dyslexia (Shaywitz et al., 1990).

MYTH: Dyslexia only affects people who speak English.

TRUTH: Dyslexia appears in all cultures and languages in the world with written language, including those that do not use an alphabetic script such as Korean and Hebrew. In English, the primary difficulty is the accurate decoding of unknown words. Inconsistent orthographies such as German or Italian, dyslexia appears more often as a problem with fluent reading – readers may be accurate, but very slow (Ziegler & Goswami, 2005).

MYTH: People with dyslexia will benefit from colored text overlays or lenses.

TRUTH: There is no strong research evidence that intervention using colored overlays or special lenses has any effect on the word reading or comprehension of children with dyslexia (American Optometric Association, 2004; Iovino et al., 1998).

MYTH: A person with dyslexia can never learn to read.

TRUTH: This is simply not true. The earlier children who struggle are identified and provided systematic, intense instruction, the less severe their problems are likely to be (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000; Torgesen, 2002). With adequately intensive instruction, however, even older children with dyslexia can become accurate, albeit slow readers (Torgesen et al., 2001).

It is important to focus on the strengths as well as the weaknesses. The goal is to make sure that the strengths and not the weaknesses define the child’s life. It is important to remember that the problem is with expressive language and not with thinking.

• The first clue to dyslexia may be a delay in speaking

• Difficulties in pronunciation and articulation; Typical mispronunciations involve either leaving off beginning sounds (such as "pisgetti" for spaghetti or "lephant" for elephant) or inverting the sounds within a word ("aminal" for animal).

• Trouble penetrating the sound structure of words and as a result, are less sensitive to rhyme. Sensitivity to rhyme implies an awareness that words can be broken down into smaller segments of sound and that different words may share a sound in common.

• Unable to focus on one part of the word. For example; alk in talk and walk

• Inarticulate or difficulties expressing themselves

• “Fuzzy” phonemes interfere with the beginner reader’s ability to learn the names and the sounds of the letters of the alphabet (S. Shaywitz, 2003).

Characteristics of Students with Dyslexia (by age)