Understanding Learning Difficulties: Dyslexia

(Farmer, 2017)

Specific Learning Disability

(Nesher, 2019)

Specific Learning Disabilities (SPL) are neurodevelopmental disorders that impact a person’s ability to learn and apply key academic skills (McDowell, 2018). According to the American Psychiatric Association (2022), SLPs have six specific deficits: word recognition, reading comprehension, spelling, written expression, mathematical operations, and mathematical reasoning. Modern research on SLPs has resulted in the precise identification of students with SPL receiving interventions and accommodations for learning, which has increased academic outcomes (Grigorenko et al., 2020).

What is Dyslexia?

Dyslexia is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects an individual’s ability to learn to read accurately and fluently and the development of spelling skills (González et al., 2018). Individuals with dyslexia have difficulties decoding speech and sounds and how they relate to letters and words in a text (Snowling et al., 2020). According to the simple view of reading (SVR) reading comprehension difficulties could be due to an inability to decode, an inability to comprehend language or difficulties with both of these skills (Gough & Tunmer, 1986; Sleeman et al., 2022). Individuals with dyslexia, exhibit decoding difficulties in the absence of language comprehension difficulties, impacting reading comprehension and vocabulary development (Adlof & Hogan, 2018). Additionally, individuals with dyslexia can demonstrate a delayed development of spelling skills affecting the production of written compositions (Snowling et al., 2020; Roitsch & Watson, 2019).

Figure 1 The Simple View of Reading

(Burkins & Yates, 2021)

Dyslexia: Learning Characteristics

(Grill, 2017)

Dyslexia is characterised as difficulties with accurate and fluent word recognition, poor spelling and word decoding abilities (Huffman et al., 2020). The characteristics of dyslexia are broad and abundant, often changing throughout an individual’s development from childhood to adulthood (Roitsch & Watson, 2019). Students with dyslexia demonstrate multiple signs over a prolonged period of time these characteristics become more apparent once the child starts attending primary education.

Learning characteristics associated with dyslexia include difficulties developing phonological awareness and phonological processing skills (Yunus & Ahmad, 2022). In the classroom, this may present as challenges with articulating sounds, confusing similar sounds, and recognising rhymes (Huffman et al., 2020). Students with dyslexia demonstrate reading difficulties this includes decoding words, oral reading, reading a single word in isolation, and reading fluently and accurately (Snowling et al., 2020). Spelling may be frequently inaccurate. Secondary difficulties may arise as a result; for example, spelling challenges can lead to broader difficulties in written composition and decoding difficulties can result in poor reading comprehension (Roitsch & Watson, 2019). The teacher, identification of dyslexic characteristics present in students is vital as early intervention and crucial to the student's schooling success (Huffman et al., 2020).

Behavioural Disengagement and Dyslexia

The literacy cycle of behavioural disengagement details a student's poor academic performance resulting in lowered self-esteem, and a lack of motivation (Roitsch & Watson, 2019). Students with dyslexia tend to be less intrinsically motivated to perform reading and writing tasks (Soriano-Ferrer & Morte-Soriano, 2017; Łodygowska et al., 2016). Students with dyslexia experience repeated difficulties in acquiring reading skills, initiating a chain of escalating negative unintended consequences such as decreased motivation, leading to poor self-efficacy as students with dyslexia tend to avoid reading practices (Woolley, 2017). Consequently, students with dyslexia can experience diminished self-esteem labelling themselves as “stupid” or “dumb”, this is further reinforced as teachers provide the student with fewer rewards and positive feedback than peers (Wilmot et al., 2022).

Figure 2 The Literacy Cycle of Behavioral disengagement:

(Woolley, 2017)

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