Problems Caused by Dyslexia

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Introduction:

My father is dyslexic and as a child was labelled stupid and disruptive by most of his classmates. As a result he had an unhappy time at school and consequently he ended up abandoning school at the age of sixteen, as he was made to feel incapable of learning literacy. His parents did not encourage and support him much either.

From the way he reads, writes and spells I assume that my father has a level of literacy of age 10. He is able to decipher words in reading but has problems with decoding and comprehending all of them especially long, new, words. He knows how to write but more often than not he has problems with spelling. When I was young I used to sympathise with him as he is an intelligent, wonderful person and yet he lacks to some extent, one of the most vital components of life. Apart from weaknesses he also has a number of strengths namely orally discussing his ideas; in fact he forms part of one of our local political committees and he is also very good at working manually.

My father's situation is not unique and there must be hundreds of people my father's age, who are dyslexic and who still don't know about their learning difficulty or developmental disorder. They estimate that 1 in 10 children have Dyslexic tendencies which is about 2-3 children per average class. Dyslexia as a term was coined just over 100 years ago in the British Medical Journal (Pringle-Morgan, 1896). Even if there were early clinical reports about dyslexia, it still remained in the dark until 1960s, when research turned toward identifying systemic differences between `dyslexic' and normal readers.

Dyslexia - A Definition:

I have come across various definitions of Dyslexia. Singleton's (1992) definition is ve...

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...nd Edition. London: Whurr.

Duncan, A. (1996). Understanding Spelling (Chapter 16, pp. 197-215). In Reid, G. Dimensions of Dyslexia Volume 1 Assessment, Teaching and the Curriculum. Glasgow: Moray House.

Hughes, M. and Hunter-Carsch, M. (2001). Spelling support in secondary education (Chapter 5, pp.56-76). In Hunter-Carsch, M. and Herrington, M. Dyslexia and Effective Learning in Secondary and Tertiary Educaiton. London: Whurr.

Turner, E. (2001). Dyslexia and English (Chapter 8, pp.64-71). In Peer, L. and Reid, G. (eds) Dyslexia - Successful Inclusion in Secondary School. London: David Fulton.

Online:

Morgan- Pringle (1896). British Medical Journal Available: http://www.dyslexia-information.com/whatisit.html

http://www.dyslexiacentre.co.uk

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