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Dyslexia

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Jannatul Ferdous:
Dyslexia is the name for specific learning disabilities in reading. Dyslexia is often characterized by difficulties with accurate word recognition, decoding and spelling. Dyslexia may cause problems with reading comprehension and slow down vocabulary growth.

If your child has dyslexia, she won’t outgrow it. It’s a lifelong condition. But that doesn’t mean your child can’t be happy and successful. There are many effective teaching strategies and tools that can help your child. In fact, many people with dyslexia have successful careers in business, science and the arts.

It’s important to keep in mind, however, that struggles with reading and other issues can lead to frustration and low self-esteem. The stress of dealing with schoolwork can make kids with dyslexia lose the motivation to keep trying.

Jannatul Ferdous:
There’s no way to know the exact number of people with dyslexia. But we do know that features of dyslexia are very common.

More than 2 million students ages 3–21 have learning disabilities, according to the U.S. Department of Education. And the vast majority of them have trouble with reading. In fact, the term dyslexia is often used to mean disabilities with reading.

That figure doesn’t tell the whole story, however. It only covers students who are getting services under the special education law IDEA.
So it doesn’t count kids who are being served under other laws. Or kids who may not be identified with learning disabilities but who are getting help through a multi-tier system of supports (MTSS). Also missing are students who are struggling but getting no services or support.

Jannatul Ferdous:
Researchers have yet to pinpoint what causes dyslexia. But they do know that genes and brain differences might influence a child’s chances of having dyslexia. Here are some of the possible causes of dyslexia:

•   Genes and heredity: Dyslexia often runs in families. So if your child has dyslexia, there’s a chance you or another relative may have it too. About 40 percent of siblings of children with dyslexia may have the same reading issues.[4] As many as 49 percent of parents of kids with dyslexia may have it too. Scientists have also found several genes associated with reading and language processing issues.

•   Brain anatomy: Having dyslexia doesn’t mean your child isn’t bright. In fact, many people with dyslexia have above-average intelligence. But their brain may look different from the brain of people who don’t have dyslexia. Consider, for example, the planum temporale. This area of the brain plays a role in understanding language. It’s typically larger in the dominant hemisphere (the left side of the brain for right-handed people) than in the right hemisphere. But if your child has dyslexia, the planum temporale is probably about the same size on both the left and right sides of the brain.

•   Brain activity: To be able to read, our brains have to translate the symbols we see on the page into sounds. Then those sounds have to be combined into meaningful words. Typically the areas of our brains responsible for language skills work in a predictable way. But if your child has dyslexia, those areas don’t work together in the same way. Kids with reading issues end up using different areas of the brain to compensate.

Jannatul Ferdous:
Because dyslexia affects some people more severely than others, your child’s symptoms may look different from those in another child. Some kids with dyslexia have trouble with reading and spelling. Others may struggle to write or to tell left from right.

Some children don’t seem to struggle with early reading and writing. But later on, they have trouble with complex language skills, such as grammar, reading comprehension and more in-depth writing.

Dyslexia can also make it difficult for people to express themselves clearly. It can be hard for them to structure their thoughts during conversation. They may have trouble finding the right words to say.

Others struggle to understand what they’re hearing. This is especially true when someone uses nonliteral language such as jokes and sarcasm.

The signs you see may also look different at various ages. Some of the warning signs for dyslexia, such as a speech delay, appear before a child reaches kindergarten. More often, though, dyslexia is identified in grade school. As schoolwork gets more demanding, trouble processing language becomes more apparent.
Many children have one or two of these issues on occasion. But kids with dyslexia have several of these issues, and they don’t go away.

Jannatul Ferdous:
Warning Signs in Preschool or Kindergarten
•   Has trouble recognizing the letters of the alphabet
•   Struggles to match letters to sounds, such as not knowing what sounds b or h make
•   Has difficulty blending sounds into words, such as connecting C-H-A-T to the wordchat
•   Struggles to pronounce words correctly, such as saying “mawn lower” instead of “lawn mower”
•   Has difficulty learning new words
•   Has a smaller vocabulary than other kids the same age
•   Has trouble learning to count or say the days of the week and other common word sequences
•   Has trouble rhyming

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