Dyslexia is a learning disorder characterized primarily by reading difficulties. This disorder affects up to 20% of people in the United States (US), and millions more may still be undiagnosed. Dyslexia is related to how the brain works and is not caused by low education, low intelligence, or poor eyesight. People with dyslexia often have difficulty chopping words up and putting sounds together into words, both orally and in writing. In other words, people with dyslexia have to struggle hard to translate language into understanding in the mind (in the process of listening or reading) and translating understanding in the mind into language (in the process of speaking or writing). Because of this, people with dyslexia usually cannot read with as much accuracy, speed, and fluency as those without dyslexia. The good news is that although dyslexia is lifelong, it can be managed and alleviated, once diagnosed. The main symptom is reading slowness or difficulty, but there are a number of other signs to recognize dyslexia in preschool and kindergarten age children, school age, and adults.
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Part 1 of 3: Recognizing Dyslexia in Preschool and Kindergarten Age Children (3-6 years)
Step 1. Find speech and listening difficulties
Dyslexia is characterized by problems understanding and processing language, so the symptoms will appear in various fields, not just reading. One or two symptoms that appear do not necessarily indicate dyslexia, but if your child has many of the signs below, you may need to consult a pediatrician.
- Slow speech (though this may be due to a variety of other factors). Consult a pediatrician if you are concerned about your child's speech development.
- Difficulty pronouncing words, including a tendency to swap letters, such as "kaman" (when it should be "eat").
- Difficulty breaking words into sounds, and vice versa, difficulty combining sounds into words when speaking.
- It's hard to deal with rhyming words combined.
Step 2. Find learning difficulties
Because children with dyslexia have difficulties with sound processing (sound changes) and with visual-verbal response processes, he or she may exhibit difficulties with basic learning, which include:
- Slow in adding vocabulary. Usually, preschool-aged children who suffer from dyslexia only master a small number of words.
- Slow to recognize sounds, letters, colors, and numbers. Children with dyslexia may even be slow to name/recognize objects that they often encounter on a daily basis.
- It's hard to recognize his own name.
- Difficulty using rhyming words or pronouncing nursery rhymes.
- It is difficult to remember the material/content of an information, for example a video/film, even though it is his/her favorite video/film.
- Note that writing errors are not always a sign of dyslexia in preschoolers. Many kindergarten and first graders use letters or numbers in reverse when learning to write. However, it can be a sign of dyslexia if it persists in older children, and thus the child needs to be tested for dyslexia.
Step 3. Find physical difficulties
Because dyslexia includes problems with spatial organization and fine motor control, this disorder can also appear physically in young children, for example:
- Slow to develop fine motor skills, such as holding a pencil, using buttons and zippers, or brushing teeth.
- Difficult to recognize left and right.
- Difficulty moving to the beat of the music.
Step 4. Consult a pediatrician
If you are concerned that your child may be dyslexic, the best thing you can do is to consult a pediatrician who usually treats your child. Early diagnosis is very important in helping the child learn to deal with dyslexia effectively.
Professionals have a series of tests that they use to test and diagnose dyslexia in children from the age of 5 years
Part 2 of 3: Recognizing Dyslexia in School Age Children (6-18 years)
Step 1. Find reading difficulties
Dyslexia in children and young adults is usually first recognized when they lag behind their peers in the process of learning to read, or if they continue to display reading skills below normal for their biological age. This is the main sign of dyslexia. This reading problem for example is:
- Too late to learn to understand the relationship between letters and sounds.
- Confused when dealing with even short words, such as “to” or “at”, and “call” or “take”.
- Consistently shows reading, spelling, and writing errors, even after seeing correct examples. Common errors, for example, are letters that are reversed left and right (eg "d" and "b"); reversed words (eg “safe” and “name”); upside down letters (eg “m” and “w”, “u” and “n”); misplaced letters (eg “bottom” and “plague”); and the word it replaces (eg “watch” and “clock”).
- It takes reading short material over and over again to understand its content.
- Difficulty understanding concepts common to children his age.
- It is difficult to record and predict what will happen next in a story or event.
Step 2. Observe listening and speaking difficulties
The causes behind dyslexia are sound processing problems, problems with the ability to see or hear words, problems breaking words into separate sounds, then problems in associating each sound with the letters that make up the words. While these problems make reading very difficult, they also affect the child's ability to hear and speak clearly and correctly. Signs that can appear include:
- Problems understanding prompt instructions or remembering sequences of commands.
- It is difficult to remember what has been heard.
- It's hard to translate thoughts into words. The child may also speak in halting and incomplete sentences.
- Speaks confusing words: words that are wrong or that are replaced by words other than those intended by the child.
- Difficulty finding and understanding rhyming words.
Step 3. Watch for physical signs
Dyslexia also includes problems with spatial organization, so children with this disorder may struggle with their motor skills. Some of the signs of this motor disorder are:
- Difficult to write or copy. Their handwritten form may also be illegible.
- Holds a pencil or pen in an unorthodox way.
- Physically awkward or weak in body coordination.
- Difficulty playing ball or getting involved in team sports.
- Often confused to distinguish left and right, and up and down.
Step 4. Look for signs of emotion or behavior
Children with dyslexia often struggle with daily activities at school, mainly because they see that their peers read and write with relative ease. As a result, these children may feel more stupid or feel like a failure in many ways. There are a number of emotional or behavioral signs that may indicate that your child has undiagnosed and untreated dyslexia:
- Shows low self-esteem.
- Withdraws or seems depressed and not interested in socializing or being with friends.
- Experiencing anxiety. Some experts view anxiety as an emotional symptom that is most often seen in children with dyslexia.
- Shows extreme frustration, which often takes the form of anger. The child may also exhibit problematic behavior, such as "acting out" to distract others from their learning difficulties.
- May have difficulty staying focused and appear too active or daydreaming too much.
Step 5. Observe the dodge mechanism
Children and young adults with dyslexia may deliberately avoid situations that require them to read, write, or speak in public, such as friends, teachers, or parents. Be aware that older children often use this avoidance strategy to deal with these situations. Poor organization or apparent laziness may be the child's way of avoiding the difficulties associated with his dyslexia.
- Children and young adults may pretend to be sick to avoid having to read aloud or speak in public for fear of embarrassment.
- They may also procrastinate on reading or writing assignments in order to delay their struggle for as long as possible.
Step 6. Consult the teacher and pediatrician who usually treats your child
If you think that your child may be dyslexic based on one or more of the above signs, you should consult with people who have also treated your child during this time, such as teachers and pediatricians. These people can help refer you to a professional psychologist so that your child can be tested with certainty. Early diagnosis is very important in helping children learn to deal with dyslexia.
- The needs of children with dyslexia that are not answered can have serious consequences in their lives in the future. Research shows that more than a third of students with dyslexia drop out of school, and this is more than a quarter of all high school students who drop out.
- There is no single specific test that can diagnose dyslexia. The standard test suite includes up to 16 types of tests. These tests examine all aspects of the reading process to observe where difficulties occur, compare the level of reading ability with its potential based on intelligence, and examine how the test taker absorbs and reproduces information (audio, visual, or kinesthetic).
- These tests are usually administered by the child's school, but as an additional help, you can also contact dyslexia treatment centers and specialists who specialize in treating dyslexia based on your location.[1]
Part 3 of 3: Recognizing Dyslexia in Adults
Step 1. Find problems related to reading and writing
Adults who have lived with dyslexia for a long time often have to struggle with many of the same problems faced by sufferers as children. Common signs of reading and writing difficulties that occur in adults include:
- Slow and shows a lot of errors in reading.
- Bad spelling. People with dyslexia may also spell the same word in different ways in the same writing.
- Poor vocabulary.
- Difficult to plan and organize, including summarizing and summarizing information.
- Poor memory and difficulty retaining information after reading it.
Step 2. Find the strategies used to deal with dyslexia
Many adults have developed specific strategies to compensate for their dyslexia. Examples of these strategies are:
- Avoid reading and writing.
- Rely on someone else to spell.
- Procrastinate doing reading and writing assignments.
- Rely on memory (memorization), instead of reading.
Step 3. Notice any other abilities that are above average
Although dyslexics may have difficulty reading, this is not a sign that they are less intelligent. In fact, dyslexics often have excellent interpersonal skills, and are very intuitive and effective at “reading” other people's personalities. People with dyslexia also tend to have strong thinking skills in the field of space science and may work in fields that require expertise in this area, such as engineering (as engineers) and architecture.
Step 4. Do the test
Once identified as dyslexic, adults can learn to use the right strategies to be able to read and write more effectively, which in turn will increase their sense of self-esteem. Consult a doctor to find a professional (usually a psychologist) who can perform the appropriate tests.
Tips
- Many people with dyslexia have lived very successful lives in various fields. Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, George Washington, Charles Schwab, Andrew Jackson, and Alexander Graham Bell are at the top of the list of politicians, businessmen, military leaders, and scientists with dyslexia who have achieved extraordinary success and made significant contributions. which means a lot to the world. In addition, Steven Spielberg, Orlando Bloom, Jay Leno, Tommy Hilfiger, Leonardo da Vinci, and Ansel Adams are also celebrities, artists, and designers who suffer from dyslexia.
- If you or someone you care about is dyslexic, understand that there are treatments available and a successful future is possible.
Warning
- There are many misconceptions about dyslexia and its sufferers. For example, dyslexia is actually not related at all to intelligence level, and the problems that sufferers experience with reading are not the result of low intelligence or laziness. Research shows that children who have both high and low IQ scores can have severe problems with phonological coding (the understanding of sounds), namely the splitting of words into individual sounds and vice versa, combining sounds into words in spoken or written form. Therefore, it is very important to make sure that you understand dyslexia correctly when trying to identify whether you or someone you know has this disorder.
- Recognizing dyslexia can be difficult, because the symptoms and the degree to which this disability appears varies greatly from person to person. Moreover, the presence of other limitation disorders may obscure the real problem, so that the differences between each disorder and/or cause-effect relationships are unclear.
