Dyslexia is a language disorder of neurobiological origin, which mainly affects literacy, that is, the ability to read and write. These skills are separate but united processes at the same time, since when we write we are forced to constantly engage in reading activities.
Furthermore, dyslexia is one of the learning disorders that occurs most frequently in the child population, with a prevalence of between 5% and 10%, although according to some studies it can reach 17.5%. So dyslexia, without a doubt, represents a very important problem, due to its consequences in the academic field and its emotional repercussions.
If you are interested in learning more about dyslexia, do not hesitate to continue reading this Psychology-Online article: What is dyslexia: symptoms, types, causes and treatment.
Dyslexia commonly begins to be detected when the child begins to enter the process of learning to read and write, that is, from the age of 2-3 to approximately 7 years. It is vitally important to detect the symptoms of dyslexia early.
The main symptoms of dyslexia are the following:
- The main symptom that characterizes, generally and broadly speaking, dyslexia is a great difficulty during learning and acquisition of readingwhich is an unexpected difficulty in relation to other abilities that the person shows and their educational circumstances.
- The second most common symptom among people who suffer from dyslexia is poor academic performance in all those subjects that require reading as a basis for learning, since having difficulties in reading and writing implies greater difficulty in the learning process of certain subjects or concepts. For example, one can give problems in the rhythm and speed of learning written language, difficulties in copying from the blackboard to the notebook, among others. In addition, it must be taken into account that reading and writing are essential in most subjects, whether when reading books or when reading the questions and writing the answers in an exam.
- Phonological deficit: The vast majority of people who suffer from dyslexia simultaneously suffer from a phonological deficit, that is, a deficit in some aspect of the representation and processing of language sounds. This may be due to a weak ability to consciously attend to and manipulate the sounds of the language, a short-term verbal memory that limits the ability to keep phonological representations momentarily active, and/or a slow ability to recover phonological forms. of words with the aim of undertaking the articulation of speech.
- Auditory processing problemsespecially the rapid processing of sounds.
- Visual acuity problems.
- motor problems.
- Difficulty paying attention.
- The person shows slowness or an abnormality in the development of verbal language.
- Difficulties in reading, writing, spelling, vision, motor coordination, mathematics, understanding of time, situation in space and limitation of the ability to integrate information that they understand separately. That is, they confuse letters, change syllables, delete or add letters or words, have difficulty memorizing spelling rules, and have difficulty with fine and gross motor skills.
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Dyslexia is mainly divided into three main types. The three types of dyslexia are:
- Phonological dyslexia: People who suffer from this type of dyslexia show problems in the development of graphonemic reading (that is, syllable by syllable).
- surface dyslexia: In this type of dyslexia, people show difficulties in the development of lexical reading, so that they have problems in words that do not share writing with pronunciation, since they do not conform to the rules of grapheme-to-phoneme conversion. For example, “hay” is a word that in its written version has three letters, but when it comes to pronouncing it, the “h” is silent and only two of the three letters are pronounced.
- Mixed dyslexia: This type of dyslexia corresponds to people who show a combination of the two previous types of dyslexia.
Currently, and despite the large amount of research carried out on dyslexia, the exact causes of its origin are not known. Thus, the following could be mentioned as possible causes of dyslexia:
- hereditary factors: If there is a history of family members suffering from dyslexia, the person will be more likely to suffer from dyslexia.
- Genetics: Another cause of dyslexia is genetic factors.
- Brain injuries.
- Emotional problems.
- Problems in sequence orientation: Another cause of dyslexia is problems in sequence orientation. Sequence orientation allows people to order objects, events (past, present future), among others. People who suffer from dyslexia show difficulties in temporally ordering the events of a book, for example.
- Visual perception problems/Perceptual-visual disorder.
- Lack of brain dominance: The brain is divided into two hemispheres (the right and the left), so that the right part of the brain has the role of controlling the left part of the body and, conversely, the left part of the brain controls the right part of the body. body. Thus, people who are dominant in the left side of the brain have an easier time controlling the right side of their body and have more difficulties controlling the left side (for example, in this case they would write with their right hand, kick a ball with the right leg…). Therefore, the lack of cerebral dominance refers to both parts of the brain, leading to difficulties in effectively dominating the body, including the hands and fingers when writing.
- Another cause of dyslexia is poor connection between the two cerebral hemispheres.
- Low phonological awareness.
Regarding the treatment of dyslexia, some considerations are necessary. First of all, it is important treat dyslexia early, since both reading and writing are essential processes in human development. On the one hand, reading provides cognitive autonomy, creates habits of reflection, effort, concentration, among others. On the other hand, writing serves to relate to the environment, as a form of expression, as a study tool, and much more.
Dyslexia is not a curable disorder, but it can be treated, using different therapeutic approaches depending on the age of the person. Fundamentally, dyslexia treatment measures are based on interventions on language, phonology and reading, adapting each and every one of the measures to the individual, with the aim of personalizing the treatment to the individual needs and characteristics of each person. Also adapting the treatment to age, since the application of treatment techniques to children is different.
It is common for people who suffer from dyslexia to have other associated problems, which must also be treated, such as attention difficulties, motor difficulties, among others.
A common practice carried out in the treatment of dyslexia is the so-called “overlearning”, which consists of relearning the reading and writing process, but, in this case, adapting the rhythm to the zone of proximal development of person. That is, it consists of adapt the teaching-learning process of literacy adapted to the rhythm and individual characteristics of the person. Furthermore, in the treatment of dyslexia, special emphasis is placed on working with the guiding principle of error-free learning, promoting success throughout the process, since people who suffer from dyslexia usually have a low tolerance for frustration.
In short, the treatment of dyslexia seeks to correct the factors or impaired functions that cause the symptoms of dyslexia and therefore promote improved school learning, academic performance and success in life.