Dyslexia Treatment and Learning Disabilities in Children
What is a learning disability?
A learning disability can be defined as any disruption in one or multiple basic psychological functions. These can encompass but are not limited to an individual’s ability to think, listen, speak, read, or write. There are a variety of causes for such conditions. Some of these include brain injury, brain dysfunction, or dyslexia.
What is dyslexia?
Dyslexia is one of the most common learning disabilities. It is a neurological impairment that is characterized by difficulties with accurate word recognition, as well as weak spelling abilities. We can help with dyslexia treatment for children.
Your child may have dyslexia if he or she struggles with a combination of any of these common symptoms:
- Poor decoding (reading) of singular words
- Labored, inaccurate oral reading
- Short term memory problems
- Confusing small words, such as reading “at” instead of “to”
- Reversing letters, such as recognizing the letter “b” as the letter “d”
- Reversing whole words, such as reading “tap” instead of “pat”
- Low self-esteem
- Student uses context clues to guess words that make sense rather than sounding out sounds to read word correctly.
Dyslexia often coexists with other disorders such as ADHD, dysgraphia, and/or other speech-language related impairments.
What is ADHD?
ADHD refers to a biological condition known as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. It is most often characterized by difficulty concentrating and remaining still. These symptoms are the result of over-activity in the portion of the brain that is responsible for concentration. In children without ADHD, this region of the brain is typically less active and may even develop more slowly. The symptoms of ADHD are likely to change with time, yet ADHD is a lifetime condition.
What is Dysgraphia?
Dysgraphia is a learning disability that is writing based. It is characterized by messy handwriting, poor spelling, and misuse of punctuation. These signs will generally appear during a child’s elementary years.
For Further Research:
Overcoming Dyslexia by Sally Shaywitz
Sources:
International Dyslexia Association (www.interdys.org)
National Center for Learning Disabilities (www.ncld.org)