Signs of Dyslexia

Early evaluation and diagnosis of dyslexia is very important for the child in question. This evaluation should be done by a qualified professional such as a neurologist or an educational professional psychologist. The dyslexia test – an evaluation of the disability includes testing of the reading ability while measuring the underlaying skills for rapid naming. Also short term memory with sequencing skills and non word reading will evaluate phonological coding skills. Usually a IQ test will be used to establish the learning strengths and weaknesses. Also other testing should be conducted to determine if the problems are a result of physical causes such as problems with hearing and vision along with a more generalizes cognitive impairment. It is often hard to determine the causes of dyslexia.

Listed below are a few of the shared symptoms that may be a result of the speech/hearing deficits and dyslexia.

--Difficulties remembering, retaining and learning the alphabet.

--Phonological Awareness--Difficulties counting syllables in words or generating or identifying rhyming words.

--Auditory Discrimination--Difficulties with the distinguishing different sounds in words.

--Difficulties associating individual words with their correct meanings.

--Confusing combinations of words.

--Difficulties with organization skills.

--Confusions between left/right, before/after, so on.

--Difficulties naming problems and word retrieval.

--Phonemic Awareness--Difficulties manipulating and hearing different sounds in words.

--Difficulties with learning the sounds of the letters.

--Difficulties of the concept of time and the time keeping.

--With a fear of speaking wrong, some of the children may become shy and withdrawn. Others may become bullies due to the inability of under standing the social cues in their own environments.

Reading and spelling will be affected. As reading is learned with a lot of the words read and pronounced out loud, this is to be expected. Learning letter-sound correspondence can cause the child to misspell words by leaving out vowels. Two of the letters may be reversed or transposed such as “dose instead of does”. Dyslexics may add or subtract letters or even repeat letters in words. The spelling of words be also be in a highly phonetic form such as “shud for should”. Problems with the homophones such as “there and their” may be present as well. Most dyslexics will have a very small written vocabulary even if the spoken vocabulary is large.

Along with the literacy problems the dyslexic will have problems with the writing and motor skills. A slower then normal writing speed can be accompanied with poor handwriting. Irregular formed letters may be present as well along with inappropriate words. Some of the studies have results of gross motor difficulties in dyslexia. This can include motor skills disorder which is indicated by clumsiness and poor coordination.