A neurodevelopment disorder formally named as Dyslexia is characterized by ones inability to comprehend reading material which is not associated generally by the language deficit, intelligence and difficulty in sensory modalities. It is also affect person’s writing, spelling and sometime speaking. It is the deficiency in linguistic processing that contributes to begin difficulty in comprehension of written expression, but usually people think that this problem instigate due to the low level of sensory processing. According to U.S. Department of Education, around 2 million students belong to the ages of 3 to 21 have problem of learning disabilities and most of them have difficulty in reading. In actual, dyslexia is referring to have disability in reading. Dyslexia is more commonly seen in males as compare to females, more boys than girls come to the clinics for the treatment of dyslexia. They show higher rate of co-morbid disorder named as Attention Deficit Hyper Activity Disorder (ADHD).
Dyslexic children having difficulty in processing information when they look any word written on book or board. They also feels problem in connecting sound of specific letters or misinterpret the sound of letters when combine to create a word. Their basic skills such as writing, spelling speaking and math also get affected because of dyslexia.
Warning signs of developing Dyslexia in Children
The impairment relay on mild to severe category when anyone suffers from dyslexia. Symptoms of dyslexia may vary from one individual to another, it does not necessary to have similar signs like other person. Some common signs and symptoms of dyslexia are as mention below.
• Difficulty in speaking fluently
• Problem in pronouncing words
• Trouble in rhyming words or poem.
• An inability in learning basic skills such as the alphabet, colors, and numbers
• Handwriting and other fine motor skills may under develop
• Confusion in recognizing letters such as "b" and "d".
• Having difficulty in making connection between letters and sounds
Approximately 25 percent individuals having dyslexia also have vulnerability to develop Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
Some symptoms may exhibit only in older kids or adults with dyslexia such as;
• Difficulties in comprehend reading, writing, and spelling material
• Constant trouble in completing school tasks
• Having problem in developing linguistic skills
• Unclear handwriting skills
• Trouble in memorizing numbers
• Confusion in understanding sequence of directions
• Difficulty in left and right orientation
During adulthood it is hard to evaluate the main reason of being dyslexic because most of the individuals have learned to cope with this problem and develop strategies to hide their weaknesses. Mostly in children dyslexic symptoms and the outcomes of weak literacy skills are prominent but they are not as such apparent in adulthood.
Usually researchers focused on the model of dyslexia refer as “Casual Model”. It is the representative of casual theory particularly to develop understanding about disorder. It defines the contribution of biological, cognitive and behavioral factors that plays a major part to develop dyslexia. The casual model explains function of dyslexia as in the interaction among cognitive, biological, behavioral factors with the connectivity of environmental cues. There are numerous casual models to develop understanding how dyslexia become problematic for a person such as; Basic causal model, Model of dyslexia with phonological deficit and Causal model of dyslexia with attention deficit. According to the basic casual model dyslexia is develop because of genetic causes, brain defect can be detect easily while examining ones brain who is having trouble in reading difficulties. The dysfunctional brain influence negatively to the cognitive functions particularly in phonological coding. As in result of phonological deficit direct to multiple difficulties in relation of speaking and learning problems.
Reasons to become Dyslexic
Researchers are interested to investigate about the contributing factors that can cause dyslexia. Recent research studies indicate that genetics and brain dissimilarity influence a child’s of generating the symptoms of dyslexia. There are several possible reasons of dyslexia.
• Genes and heredity: Most families have problem of dyslexia by decades. So if a child has dyslexia, there’s a chance that any immediate relative may have it too. These problems usually develop of siblings of children with dyslexia; their siblings might have the same complaint when they read. In an estimate, 49 percent of parents of children with dyslexia may have same issue when they were in young age. A number of research showed that genetic factors are linked with reading and language processing problem.
• Brain anatomy: Having dyslexia doesn’t have concern with ones intellectual level. If a child has dyslexic issues then it does not indicate his/her intelligence level in general. Most of individuals with dyslexia have superior intelligence. Despite this, their brain image may look a slightly different from others who don’t have reading or comprehension difficulties. Brain part named as Planum Temporale is responsible for understanding language is usually larger in left hemisphere (the left side of the brain for right-handed people) than in the right hemisphere. A child has dyslexia, the planum temporale is typically same size on both the left and right hemisphere.
• Brain activity: Human brain has the ability to recognize and translate symbols, one seen on page to produce sounds. These sounds then combined to create meaningful words. Typically the areas of our brains responsible for language skills work in a predictable way. In case of dyslexia these brain part doesn’t work as efficiently as the normal brain part does.
Skills affect by dyslexia
Individual feels difficulty to carry on daily activities and utilize basic skills in educational setting or workplace. Because of learning problems everyday skills and activities affect badly that sometime sufferer may feel inferior from others. There are certain areas of life which affected because of dyslexia.
Social Relationships: Person’s social life may disturb because of inferiority complex or ongoing criticism from his peers, teachers and significant others. If any child has dyslexia, he feels incompetent to participate in curricular activities. His class mates make fun of him or bully when he is alone. Dyslexic children feels shy or hesitate to make new friends or show lack of confidence when teacher ask to perform in front of his mates. Child may have self esteem issue as well.
Understanding listening commands: Dyslexic people have a propensity to be better listeners than readers. But they are unable to filter out noise coming from background. When listen words having similar sounds they become confuse and feel hard to differentiate it.
Memory/ Recalling Issues: Children having dyslexia don’t remember long sentences. They also weak in learning sequence, dates, alphabet, phone numbers. They don’t understand meaning of words when listen or read. To make improvement in their memory skills, Listening aids or assistive technology can help.
Disturbance in Spatial Concept: Their spatial/ temporal concepts are not clear, as they having problem to differentiate “left” and “right.” Due to this, some children may feel fear of getting lost easily when going home from school or familiar place.
Time management: Dyslexic kids can’t tell time correctly when someone ask them. Setting an alarm, pictorial program and other cues can be useful to keep dyslexic child and adults to follow or manage time according to their tasks.
Guidelines for Parents of Children with Dyslexia
Parents should have enough knowledge to deal with kid who has reading and learning problems. Because it gives sense to kid that his parents accept his problem and support him to fight with the suffering.
• Getting Education about Dyslexia: The best way to help your child is to about dyslexia treatment and dealing with emotional problems of child. Parents can take help from other parents of dyslexic child or ask from child psychologist.
• Provide assistance when he or she needs. If you observe child activity when he is playing or doing homework, you can assist child by doing so you can assure your child that he has supportive environment around him. Parents should meet with teachers and principal to follow child progress in school.
• Read to your child often. Motivate a child to read books as much as he can so that his reading skills can improve.
• Help child to practice activity he or she get pleasure from. If your child enjoys doing art work, dancing, games and other non-academic activities, encourage him to pursue these positive activities in order to build his self confidence.
• Dealing with emotional distress of child: Child having dyslexia often feels emotionally disturb because of his own negative thoughts, comparison with siblings. Parents can help their child when he gets disturb emotionally in situations where he feels low or inferior from his peers and siblings.