Dyslexia in Children and Adults
The history of dyslexia has been one of long struggle in the darkness of ignorance, culminating in rapid and considerable progress in the last 25 years.
Dyslexics learn differently. Their eyes see the same but their brains interpret the signals from the eyes differently than those of non-dyslexics. It’s O.K., many famous people have been dyslexic. But to reach full potential they need to be taught differently, according to their needs.
In the last 15 years part of elementary school procedure has been to routinely screen for dyslexia in children. Practically all who had problems with reading were selected to go through a full-scale professional dyslexia test and evaluation.
Before that, dyslexics were lumped in with the rest of the students and had to take their chances. Most were treated badly by the educational system, called lazy, slow learners, underachievers. They were made to feel ashamed of and embarrassed by their differences and learned to conceal them.
Millions of adult dyslexics today have never taken a dyslexia test. They still struggle with learning and reading difficulties that could be easily overcome if they were only known. A half-hour dyslexia test could make enormous improvements in their self-esteem and abilities.
One of the problems in helping dyslexics is that there are many different types of dyslexia. Dyslexia takes many different forms; all dyslexics are different. They cannot be readily sorted into categories and then treated the same as a group.
These differences lead to different symptoms of dyslexia in different dyslexic subjects. Some have trouble reading, especially in reading aloud. Others may have difficulty setting a schedule and keeping to it because of differences in the perception of the passage of time. Still others struggle to write down what someone tells them… All are different.
For more info on dyslexia and how it can be overcome, click on any of the above links.
Disclaimer: Nothing in the above explanations is intended to be or represented to be or should be construed to be any form of medical advice. The information herein has been gleaned from medical journals, news articles in the popular press and other freely-available public sources. It is presented here for informational purposes only. For any medical advice the reader is urged to consult with his or her licensed physician or other medical specialist.
By David Fullman