Symptoms
There is quite a huge variation of symptoms of dyslexia among children’ depending on the learning situations, and this triggers the argument made by Julian Elliott, professor of education at Durham University in the U.K., and Elena L. Grigorenko, professor of psychology at Yale in the U.S, questioning the necessity of such labeling. See Controversy section for details.
**Note that the following symptoms/signs may not all be shown in a dyslexic child.
Symptoms tend to vary among different age stages, the following are the warning signs for dyslexia:
- Preschool/kindergarten years:
- Trouble learning distinguishing alphabet letters
- Struggling on associating letters to corresponding sounds
- Having hard time to pronounce familiar words
- Trouble in rhyming
- Relatively smaller vocabulary
- Complaining difficulty of reading
- Primary school to middle school years:
- Slow reading
- Avoiding reading out loud
- Having trouble dealing with new words
- Finding it hard to describe using more specific words
- Pausing and hesitating while speaking
- Needing more time to response to questions
- Messy handwriting
- Relatively lower self-esteem
- High school years to adulthood:
- Still requiring great efforts to read
- Avoiding reading out loud
- Easily anxious while speaking
- Pausing and hesitating while speaking
- Incorrect pronunciations on names and terms
- Smaller vocabulary in speaking than in listening
- Earlier difficulties still persist
- Having hard time to summarize reading
The conditions that may be confounding the diagnosis of dyslexia include:
- Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
- Auditory processing disorder
- Visual processing issues
- Dysgraphia
- Dyscalculia
- Executive functioning issues
In general, the areas that are affected by dyslexia include:
- Reading comprehension
- In-depth writing
- Speaking and expressing
- Attention
- Understanding of dialogue, especially non-literal such as jokes
- Social skills
- Management skills
- Navigation
Diagnosis
Diagnosis cannot be done with simply one step, and it requires a group of professionals. The diagnosis process includes:
- Medical Exam – vision check and other information about the child’s development and family history will be gathered by the doctor.
- Referral to a specialist – psychologists and/or some other professionals may further investigate the child’s learning issues to test out which areas the child struggles with. A series of testing including reading, spelling, rhyming, etc. will be given to the child. The testing may help determining whether other conditions (eg. ADHD, poor vision, etc.) are interfering with the learning issues.
- Result – specialists will discuss with the child’s parents with some suggestions for the child’s learning.
It is often believed that diagnosis leads to the access of free resources and supports that are needed by the dyslexic children, as well as helping parents, teachers, and even the child himself/herself identifying the difficulties the child is facing. However, some argue that dyslexia diagnosis is questionable on targeting the areas that dyslexic children need help with as it takes a wide range of possible types of difficulties into evaluation at the same time. See Controversy for details.