Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning we get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through our links, at no cost to you. Please read our disclosure for more info.
When you are raising your child, you don’t think about them becoming special needs. Special needs cover a large amount of disorders but the one that can affect their ability to read and speak is dyslexia. Dyslexia is a broad sweeping term that describes a learning disability that often prevents or hinders a person’s understanding and speed when it comes to reading and spelling.
Dyslexia is considered in a category of its own when considering other reading difficulties that are caused by vision, hearing, or inadequate teaching in reading. It is estimated that between 5 to 10 percent of the population are affected by dyslexia, although further studies need to be done in order to get a truly accurate percentage.
Experts state that there are three categories of dyslexia. These are auditory, visual and attention. Although dyslexia is considered a reading disability, it is also categorized as a receptive language based learning disability. Those people who have been diagnosed with dyslexia show lower than expected reading ability and scores despite having normal to high intelligence.
Even though the severity of dyslexia is different in every person diagnosed, the common symptoms of this learning disorder are difficulty with spelling and phonological processing as well was difficulty in rapid visual-verbal responses. Diagnosing dyslexia is hard to do before a child reaches school age, typically kindergarten. In preschool aged children exhibit delays in speech, difficulty in rhyming words, and letter reversal.
Children in the lower grades such as first or second grade show signs of difficulty in learning the alphabet or the order of the letters, troubles decoding written words, mixing up the sound in words with multiple syllables and even associating sounds with the letters that represent them. These issues aren’t cause by not being able to read the letter and words properly, but caused by the brain’s ability to recognize and process each of the symbols.
Although it is difficult to comprehend what a child goes through when dealing with any development reading disorder, with proper assessment, treatment and knowledge these children grow up and learn to cope with their disability as well as build a healthy and productive life as adults.
Lana Carson is an avid writer who covers many topics related to child care. For more information about hospitalist jobs, please check out hospitalist group.