About Dyslexia
What is It?
Some children and adults struggle with reading
and writing, causing them to lag behind in certain subjects. The condition
can be frustrating and distressing as the person is otherwise intelligent
and there appears to be no apparent reason for the difficulty.
These individuals are regarded as having a specific
reading difficulty, which is often called
dyslexia.
The condition is quite common, but has often been missed due to a
lack of awareness of the condition. Approximately 10% of the population
are thought to have some degree of dyslexia, with boys being more
affected than girls. Famous dyslexics include Einstein, Tom Cruise
and Richard Branson.
What Are The Symptoms?
The symptoms are many and varied and commonly
include some or all of the following:
 Skipping
words or lines
Reading
slowly or hesitantly
Jumping
around of words and letters
Difficulty
keeping track and frequently losing place
Dark,
light or coloured patches appear
Letters
changing shape or reversing eg ‘d’ appears as ‘b’
Blurring
and doubling of letters or words
Sore
eyes or head
Difficulty
remembering what has been just read.
Sloping
of the page or paragraph
What Causes It?
It is not clear exactly what causes dyslexia
and research is still on going. Recent studies indicate that there
are a number of contributory reasons:
Inefficiencies
in the wiring of the left hemisphere of the brain:
this is thought to occur during the early childhood developmental
period. It affects processing of information received by the brain.
Genetics: Dyslexia
tends to run in families. This has led researchers to conclude that
some people inherit genes that make certain nerve cells more vulnerable
to adverse factors that affect the development of the cells.
Dyslexia is not linked to IQ or intelligence and it affects people
of all racial and social backgrounds.
How Is It Diagnosed?
Dyslexia Assessments are conducted by trained
Educational Psychologists. They will run a series of Psychometric
Tests that measure various attributes such as reading, spelling, memory,
spatial and verbal skills. The results are compared against normal
aged matched ones. Dyslexia is said to be present when there is a
severe shortfall in the expected scores.
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