“Reading is the foundation of a child’s life-long education, and the consequences of early reading differences extend well beyond the school year.” (Ring & Black, 2018) There are many factors that can affect a student and their ability to learn how to read. While the students are at home they may not have books and their parents may not work with them on their reading skills, they could attend schools the lack resources, and/or they could have a disability. “Dyslexia is a disability which impacts on written and spoken language ability by effecting ‘phonological processing, rapid naming, working memory and processing speed’ (BDA, 2010)” (Gibson & Leinster, 2011)
“Dyslexic children were shown to be motorically less adept than their typically developing peers” (Marchand-Krynski, Morin-Moncet, Belanger, Beauchamp, Lenoard, 2017) Students who are dyslexic have specific difficulties with being able to acquire the foundations of phonemic awareness and phonological skills. Student who are not dyslexic have a better less difficulty when acquiring these necessary steps in learning. (Ring & Black, 2018) Not acquiring all the necessary steps in learning can lead to students who further their education having performance issues. Dyslexic students are often disorganized, do not know how to manage time well, and may lack spatial awareness. (Gibson & Leinster, 2011)
Being a parent comes with many different jobs you are a caregiver, teacher, counselor, marriage partner, and many more. Parents of typical children undergo stress, depression, and thoughts of failure. There are studies that have been performed and show that parents of children with dyslexia suffer from depressive symptoms and higher parenting stress levels than other parents. Parents can have many different reasons to be stress, they can be stressed with their own lives and then also with their children. There are different stressors that affect parents they can be sociological, environmental, behavioral, and developmental. The study shows that he more behavioral and psychiatric problems that the child has the more stress their parent experiences. (Multhauf, Buschmann, & Soellner, 2016)
A statistic that represent more than 2 million students, the Department of Education reported that 35% of students in public schools who were served in special education were identified with learning disabilities. An estimate that 80% of special education students have a specific reading disability or developmental dyslexia. Of the general public approximately 7% of people are affected by this. (Ring & Black, 2018)
Hakim and Ghorbanibirgani, 2015 stated in their article that…
“In a study performed with the aim of investigating the prevalence of dyslexia in the normal first grade students in five elementary schools in Isfahan, it was determined that 10 per cent of the five graders had dyslexia, of whom 66 per cent were male and 34 percent female. In another study, dyslexia was observed in 10.4, 6.8, 5.6 and 4.3 per cent of the second to fifth grade students, respectively.”
The first decades of research in specific reading disability lead people to believe that dyslexia is a disability that runs in families. “Indeed, longitudinal studies of children who have dyslexic parents show an increase chance (up to 66%) of developing a reading disorder and this risk might be modulated by persistent reading problems in parents.” (Bonifacci, Montuschi, Lami, & Snowling, 2013) Children who do not develop dyslexia in these high-risk families show poorer performance in reading, spelling, phonological processing, nonword repetition, verbal short-term memory and reading comprehension Although this observation show dyslexia as a hereditary learning disorder, the gene and cognitive phenotype relationship is not direct. (Bonifacci, Montuschi, Lami, & Snowling, 2013)
A more recent study reported that there was a higher heritability of reading disabilities in children whose parents had a higher education level. This supported the gene environment interaction, the bioecological model. “According to this model, genetic influences on behavior should be most evident when the environment is supportive because it allows greater actualization of genetic potential with respect to what happens in poor environments.” (Bonifacci, Montuschi, Lami, & Snowling, 2013) The bioecological model seems to be more adequate when explaining the manifestation of the cognitive deficits and reading disabilities. Although these observations show dyslexia as a hereditary learning disorder, the gene and cognitive phenotype relationship is not direct. (Bonifacci, Montuschi, Lami, & Snowling, 2013)
“As far as dyslexia is concerned, phonological awareness is thought to be one of the main risk factors for (endophenotypes of) reading problems.” (Bonifacci, Montuschi, Lami, & Snowling, 2013)
Students with dyslexia may need different kinds of interventions depending on how severe their disability is. If a student’s dyslexia is so severe that they cannot read or write then a intervention specialist or aid may have to read them test, quizzes, worksheets, and lessons and then write their answers for them. For a less severe case an intervention specialist or aid may have to spend extra time with the student working on reading and building their foundations of phonemic awareness and phonological skills. Each student will have a different severity of the disability, intervention specialists, teachers, and parents must be willing to sit down and make a plan that is best or that student.
Dyslexic people can go though many different emotions and feeling about themselves though their educational experience and the life in general. At times they may feel stressed, not understood, unworthy, inadequate, and deficiency. Having these feeling leads to having low self-esteem. Self-esteem is the way a person thinks of his or her self. This concept “has been shown to be important in one’s psychosocial adjustment, ability to function, and general sense of wellbeing thought out the life course.” (Carawan, Nalavany, & Jenkins, 2015) It is hypothesized that social support from friends and family will moderate or buffer the associations between stress and outcomes. “Emotional support from family and friends can moderate the negative effects of reduced economic status on life satisfaction, particularly for the oldest members of the aging population.” (Carawan, Nalavany, & Jenkins, 2015)
People who are dyslexic do not miss out on opportunities in life, but they may have to work harder than a person without the disability. As a student they will have to have participate in more reading lessons and activities than other students to build their phonemic awareness and phonological skills. Social interaction for students with dyslexia is important. Students need to have support from their peers to help them though tough time and to help build their self-esteem