Dyslexia is not a condition, it is not something that will go away and it is not contagious. Dyslexia is a lifelong condition that a person is born with and will have to learn to live with. It is a neurological learning disability that causes problems with language based-skills and can affect around 10 to 20% of the population ("Dyslexia," 2014). A person that has dyslexia can have difficulties with the areas of reading, writing, spelling, speaking, math, and or short-term memory. Having dyslexia does not mean that one is not smart, it just means that their brain functions in a different way. Dyslexia happens in people of all ethnicities and socio-economic status, however it is common to see more than one person of a family to have dyslexia.
Dyslexia does not affect everyone in the same way or with the same magnitude; the difference depends on how severe the disability is. A person with dyslexia can present trouble with reading and spelling while another may have trouble with writing (NCLD Editorial team, 2014). A person with dyslexia may have trouble expressing them selves, organizing their ideas or understanding what is being said to them. Some children experience low self-esteem and can start to feel less capable then what they truly are. After stressful experiences and academic issues a person with dyslexia may not want to continue with school. The truth is that dyslexia goes beyond the classroom environment and can affect a person in their work environment and in their relationships with others ("Effects of dyslexia," 2014).
Indicators
Identifying dyslexia as early as possible is essential in order to make school experiences less frustrating and motivate a child through school. Some of the indicators of dyslexia are: difficu...
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... a nonprofit organization that helps people with dyslexia and their families. They provide referral services, advocacy and information about the disability. Learning Disabilities of America (http://ldaamerica.org) is also a Non-profit organization that strives to create opportunities for success for anyone affected with a learning disability. KidsHealth (http://kidshealth.org) for parents, children and teens this is a website sponsored by Nemours Foundation and provides separate areas for children, parents and teens to receive age-appropriate information about their disorder. The website also offers weekly emails about your interest. National Institute of Neurological Disorders (http://www.ninds.nih.gov) is a leading government agency that supports research on brain and nervous system disorders. It provides educational materials and information about these disorders
Our abilities are often what we use to define our worth. Whether we fail or succeed our future lifestyle is open to our discretion; however, we fail to realize outside influences have the ability to cripple us. One way in which this is true is through the education system. If we fail to meet the average or typical standards of others we often mark ourselves as useless. Children, and adults, facing adversity in literacy see this as a daily struggle no matter what their individual disability is. In “Dyslexia” by Eileen Simpson, and “The Library Card”, by Richard Wright, details are what define their disabilities to their audiences. Through the descriptions presented in “Dyslexia”, we have the ability to place ourselves into Simpson’s point of view; meanwhile, in “The Library Card” it is easy to draw a connection between this story and the struggle of those in slave narratives such as the one written by Frederick Douglass.
Before we can expect people to alter their perceptions, they must understand what it is. Dyslexia is a learning disability linked to those who struggle with reading. Although, it seems pretty simple, dyslexia is extremely challenging to identify because it is not defined by one specific thing. Moreover, it includes a wide array of difficulties such as: trouble spelling words, reading quickly, writing out words, “sounding out words in” head, pronunciation and comprehension.
Robert Buck once said, “If children can’t learn the way we teach, then we have to teach the way they learn.” The Wilson Language Program has become disclosed to amplify this mentality. Dyslexia is a common disease among ten to fifteen percent of the United States, where a human being has trouble in learning to read or interpret words, letters, and other symbols. Programs are reaching out to try to terminate as much distress of dyslexia as possible. Up and coming programs, The Wilson Language Program for example, are making their best efforts to start working with children from a young age with the slight signs of this common problem. Catching dyslexia earlier in life brings more assurance that the child’s future will have little to no setbacks or disadvantages for success. In order to enhance the regressive literacy of dyslexic individuals, the Wilson Language Program is progressively being implemented into regular schooling to ensure that reading standards are met, through structure, hours of research, copious practice, and strong evidence.
The exact cause of dyslexia is unknown. However, researchers believe dyslexia is a reading disability with underlying genetic, developmental and neurological causes (8). People with dyslexia have trouble reading despite normal or high intelligence and exposure to sufficient language instruction. Specific reading problems apparent in dyslexia include reversal of words and letters, difficulty in pronouncing new words, difficulty in making a distinction between similarities and differences in words (on for no), and difficulty in discerning differences in letter sounds (ten, tin) (2).
A child with dyslexia may not have the problem of translating letters into sound but just struggle with understanding what is being read causing schoolwork to take longer than their classmates. As the child gets older, dyslexia may cause the child to complain about reading, to have trouble remembering dates and require more time for assignments and tests. (Yale Center) When a child suffers with dyscalculia he might find it hard to get the math basics down at a young age. This is because he cannot visualize numbers as meaning something more that just a shape. Often when a new math concept is learned, it is forgotten the next day, causing low grades on tests. These children also commonly have a hard time telling time and direction. Some symptoms of dysgraphia are poor handwriting, the inability to record thoughts on paper, missing letters or using replacement words that don’t always make logical sense. Spelling is a struggle and the child tires from writing
Dyslexia has been a commonly known problem in the Unites States. Even though, dyslexia is a mental problem that causes disabilities in reading, most people do not know the truth about it. There have been movies where a person with dyslexia sees letters moving around, yet people with dyslexia do not have disabilities like moving letters around. The truth is that there are plenty of misconceptions. The myths going around of what dyslexia supposedly is, is not the truth. These myths are just misconceptions and the truths about dyslexia are more complex than what it seems like. Dyslexics have different learning processes and different ways of handling the problems at hand.
Students with Dyslexia can progress very quickly in some areas, it just depends on how their brain “lights up”. Students with Dyslexia can be gifted in art, computer science, design, drama, electronics, mechanics, music, physics, and sports. So not everything can be a problem for your student. Students with Dyslexia don’t have anything wrong with them except they have a hard time reading and
This is a subject and disorder near and dear to my heart. My personal experience with dyslexia, with myself and my daughter, has given me great insight into what dyslexia is, what the signs are, and how soon you can detect the potential for problems. It is not always the case that dyslexia is the sole source of reading and reading comprehension difficulties, there are other disorders that can exist at the same time, and this is important to know in order to help students improve their reading abilities. But, dyslexia will not only affect reading abilities and reading comprehension. It can affect writing, spelling, math, memory, listing comprehension, self-esteem, social skills, the ability to understand sarcasm, understanding spatial concepts,
Goldish, Meish. Everything You Need to Know About Dyslexia. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc., 1998.
Santa Barbara, CA: Learning Works, 1996. Print. The. Girod, Christina M. Learning Disabilities. San Diego, CA: Lucent, 2001. Print.
“Everybody needs something to hope for.” (p. 157) Says Dr. Spivak to Max after the death of Kevin. Indeed, he is right. Hope can solve problems for everyone. There are plenty of problems in the world. People struggle with disabilities and certain limiting conditions. Though the road may be rough, there are ways that these people cope with their problems and find hope. Max has a problem. He is dyslexic, which is always causing him to talk negatively about himself. Kevin also has an issue that makes his body small. Nevertheless, he makes up for it by making his brain bigger. Together, Kevin and Max become Freak the Mighty. Freak the Mighty fosters their friendship, makes them as one person, and helps them deal with their individual problems.
The long disputed debate about the primary cause of dyslexia is still very much alive in the field of psychology. Dyslexia is commonly characterized as a reading and writing impairment that affects around 5% of the global population. The disorder has frequently been hypothesized to be the result of various sensory malfunctions. For over a decade, studies have made major contributions to the disorder's etiology; however, scientists are still unclear of its specific causal. Initially, dyslexia was thought to be a reading disorder in children and adults (1). Later it was suggested to consist of both a visual and writing component, therefore characterizing it as more of a learning disability which affected people of normal intelligence's ability to perform to their fullest potential (5). In the current research, cognitive and biological perspectives have often been developed independently of one another failing to recognize their respective positions within the disorder's etiology.
The most common learning disability in children does not affect only one aspect of their lives, but alters nearly every measure. Dyslexia inhibits one 's ability to read, write, and spell. About 5 to 20 percent of children attending school have some sort of a disability involved with reading. When thinking of a condition that contains no cure, such as dyslexia, you may imagine a lifetime of complications and difficulties; although, dyslexia does not damage a person’s ability to learn, it merely forces them to grasp ideas and think in their own original way. Multiple obstacles can potentially arise, but successfulness and intelligence tends to prevail, and has in multiple situations. Numerous well known people have personally suffered through
specific learning disabilities in the United States of America. The Journal of International Association of Special Education, 10(1), 21-26.
Dyslexia is a disability that has many different facets that are unique to each individual, partially due to the varying degrees of severity; however, there are many common symptoms and characteristics of this disability that allow for classification. According to Campbell’s Psychiatric Dictionary (2009), “Dyslexia is manifested by an