What is Dyslexia?
Dyslexia is a learning disability that primarily results in significant difficulties with the brains ability to process written language / graphic symbols. This difficulty in processing written words is not due to other causes such as impairments in vision or hearing, intellectual disability or from lack of educational opportunities to learn to read.
Dyslexia in Children
Children who have dyslexia are unable to attain the literacy skills expected based on their normal intellectual ability. In actual fact most people who are dyslexic are of average to above average intelligence. Some people with dyslexia are highly intelligent and can be gifted in other academic areas. Children with dyslexia may demonstrate problems in any of the areas of reading, writing, spelling or mathematical calculations.
In Australia it is estimated that 16% of the population have dyslexia. The causes of dyslexia are neurobiological and genetic. This means that you are born with this difficulty to learn to read and write and other people in your family or in previous generations have probably had the same difficulty.
A dyslexia diagnosis typically has to be completed privately as it is a lengthy and expensive assessment. A dyslexia diagnosis will require a thorough assessment which would probably include a psychological / psychometric assessment (intelligence testing), educational assessment and a speech and language assessment.
Computer programs that support children with reading and spelling problems
Organizations such as www.dyslexia-speld.com offer support to parents, children and educators of children with dyslexia. They have a calendar of workshops and have an online shop which sells computer programs that support children with reading and spelling problems. An example of such successful programs is the multisensory reading and spelling computer program Wordshark 4 or the phonological processing program Earobics (particularly useful for children with auditory processing difficulties). Activities target listening, interpreting and discriminating speech sounds, words and rhymes with increasing levels of background noise.
More Information
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