6 Things You’ve Never Heard About Dyslexia
There is a lot of misunderstanding about the way individuals with dyslexia experience the world. Here are 6 mostly-unknown things that you may not have heard about this learning disability:
Dyslexics don’t see letters backwards.
Dyslexia isn’t a visual processing problem. Instead, it is an inability to connect letters to sounds to meaning in the brain. This is a multi-step process that requires several different areas of the brain to cooperate, and individuals with dyslexia often struggle with THIS process—not with seeing letters reversed, switched, or written differently.
Some of the common understanding is because kids with dyslexia may appear to read words backwards (“dog” is “god,” for example). Researchers have explained this as the “recency effect”: they are starting with the most recent sound instead of blending the word in order.
Dyslexia can be diagnosed as early as age 5.
It’s not common for kids to be diagnosed with dyslexia until later in elementary school. However, the earlier you see the signs, the better! Early intervention with targeted phonological training can help prevent years of struggle.
Some early warning signs of dyslexia include…
- Trouble with basic skills like rhyming or identifying first/last sounds
- Difficulty sitting still or focusing for any length of time
- Lack of interest in letters or words
- Struggling to remember or recite the alphabet
- A history of slower speech development and commonly muddling words
- Struggling with 2 or more steps in directions
- Often forgetting names of people or things
- Confusion with directions (like up and down) or with identifying patterns
If your 5-7 year old is struggling in these areas, it indicates that there is a risk of dyslexia becoming an issue as they go through school. But the good news is that even kids with dyslexia can thrive and succeed with the right support!
People with dyslexia often also struggle with spelling, speech, and memorization along with reading.
Dyslexia isn’t just an issue with reading. Because of the neural connections that cause their reading struggles, there are also accompanying struggles in things like working memory, spelling, attention, and more.
Dyslexia has a major impact on kids’ self-esteem and confidence in school.
Kids with dyslexia who know that they struggle are often more reserved and embarrassed in the classroom. This is why early identification can be helpful! Kids are able to get the support they need earlier so they can become more successful in any environment.
Dyslexia is primarily an auditory and phonological processing issue.
One dyslexia help organization puts it this way: “Dyslexia does not reflect an overall defect in language, but, rather, a localized weakness within the phonologic module of the brain. This module is the functional part of the brain where the sounds of language are put together to form words and where words are broken down into sounds.”
Phonemic awareness and auditory processing skills (the ability to accurately hear a sound and manipulate it by rhyming, blending, segmenting, etc.) are foundational for all learners. But especially for dyslexic learners, building this skill is CRITICAL for helping them read successfully.
Research shows a connection between dyslexia symptoms and weak short term memory and executive functioning skills.
The dyslexic brain as a whole struggles with attention, holding onto information in order to apply it, and systematically working through a problem. These weaknesses may become top-of-mind during reading contexts, but in reality they can impact all areas of life.
Brain Training to Strengthen Key Cognitive Skills for Dyslexia
At LearningRx, we’ve worked with thousands of individuals with dyslexia. Our program approaches reading struggles in a way that is very much aligned with the needs of dyslexic learners. We focus on building phonological and auditory processing skills ALONG WITH memory, logic, processing speed, and visual processing skills.
Between 2010 and 2018, over 2,200 dyslexic students completed our reading training program and experienced amazing results! They grew over 3.7 years in all cognitive skills, but an astounding 5.7 years in auditory processing (the primary skill behind reading struggles).
Whether your child has a formal dyslexia diagnosis or reading just isn’t clicking, understanding their cognitive skill profile can help you understand the best way to help them become a confident, successful reader.
