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Dyslexia
How Common is Dyslexia?
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Dyslexia is the most common learning disability.
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As many as 17% of U.S. schoolchildren have dyslexia
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As many as 85% of students with learning disabilities have dyslexia alone or with other conditions.
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Roughly 1/3 of students with ADHD also have dyslexia
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Dyslexia can occur with no family history, but 40% of people with dyslexia will have a sibling, child, or parent with the same challenges.
What is Dyslexia?
Dyslexia causes difficulty with reading, spelling, writing and even speaking.
Dyslexia is often confused with other learning and attention issues that cause similar difficulties.
Dyslexia shares characteristics with dysgraphia, but they're not the same thing.
Characteristics:
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Difficulty associating sounds with letters and letters with sounds.
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Confusion when pronouncing words and phrases, such as saying "man lower" instead of "lawn mower."
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Difficulty reading with proper tone and grouping words and phrases together appropriately.
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Difficulty "sounding out" unfamiliar words.
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Trouble writing or copying letters, numbers and symbols in the correct order.
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Trouble rhyming.
How is Dyslexia Diagnosed?
Dyslexia is a language-based disorder. It can be diagnosed by the following professionals:
-Education Psychologist
-Neurologist
-Speech-Language Pathologist
Many factors must be considered before a child is diagnosed with dyslexia. These include the following:
-IQ scores
Children with dyslexia often have average to above average intelligence. If a child is struggling to read, yet their intelligence is above average, dyslexia may be the cause.
-Language scores
A comprehensive evaluation of language skills should be administered. A child with dyslexia may demonstrate difficulties with expressive language tasks. Their understanding is normal, however they struggle to formulate cohesive ideas, find the right words or sequence events logically.
-Reading, writing and spellings sample
This is crucial. A child with dyslexia will have difficulties with most, or all of these tasks with varying degrees of difficulty depending on the severity.
-Family history
Dyslexia is hereditary. If a family member has dyslexia, and your child is struggling academically, there is a good chance that dyslexia is to blame.
- Teacher reports/academic performance
It is important to see how the child is performing at school. Their areas of strengths and weaknesses can reveal a lot.