Dyslexia affects everyday life by creating challenges in reading, writing, and spelling, but also impacts memory, organization, time management, and focus, leading to potential frustration, low self-esteem, anxiety, and avoidance of situations involving literacy, even while fostering strengths in creativity and problem-solving, influencing daily tasks like phone use, financial management, and social interactions.
Some examples of positive coping strategies are: Working harder or smarter. Getting organised. Having a positive attitude towards new challenges. Compensating for dyslexic difficulties through the use of appropriate technology (click here for some examples)
Dyslexic people may have difficulty processing and remembering information they see and hear, which can affect learning and the acquisition of literacy skills. Dyslexia can also impact on other areas such as organisational skills. It is important to remember that there are positives to thinking differently.
Reading information takes longer for dyslexics and can be overwhelming. Competing or unclear priorities when multiple tasks are assigned. Lack of clarity can cause confusion and anxiety. Long and complicated meetings, being asked to write on a flip chart or read aloud puts our challenges centre stage.
Treatment for Dyslexia
Yet people with dyslexia can overcome many of the symptoms with lessons, practice and patience. “A person's reading can get better with high-quality instruction that helps them with the parts of reading they struggle with, coupled with a lot of practice reading,” says Norton.
The primary characteristics of dyslexia are as follows: Poor decoding: Difficulty accurately reading (or sounding out) unknown words; Poor fluency: Slow, inaccurate, or labored oral reading (slow reading rate); Poor spelling: Difficulty with learning to spell, or with spelling words, even common words, accurately.
Understanding and supporting individuals with Dyslexia, Dyscalculia, Dysgraphia, and Dyspraxia is essential for fostering an inclusive and effective learning environment. These disorders can also coincide with other conditions such as ADHD and Autism, requiring a comprehensive approach.
Symptoms of dyslexia in children aged 5 to 12 include: problems learning the names and sounds of letters. spelling that's unpredictable and inconsistent. confusion over letters that look similar and putting letters the wrong way round (such as writing "b" instead of "d")
Establish a routine
Dyslexic learners may find it difficult to maintain concentration for long periods of time and may get tired quickly, so it's a good idea to create a routine which emphasises 'a little and often' rather than trying to squeeze too much work into a longer session.
Many employers now ask about reasonable adjustments when inviting someone to an interview, but the duty is not “anticipatory” so, the onus is on you to disclose that you are dyslexic and ask for any reasonable adjustments you need to access an interview or selection test.
In reality, dyslexia can affect memory, organisation, time-keeping, concentration, multi-tasking and communication. Dyslexic people can experience processing overload and 'zone out', and often use time management tools such as the 'Pomodoro technique' or colour coded calendars to help manage this.
People with dyslexia have the ability to see how things connect to form complex systems, and to identify similarities among multiple things. Such strengths are likely to be of particular significance for fields like science and mathematics, where pictures are key.
Because the auditory system integrates both sensory and cognitive facets of hearing, we suggest that through repeated, impaired interaction with sound, children with dyslexia can develop abnormal sensory representations of speech as well as abnormal cognitive skills for the interpretation of speech.
The Many Strengths of Dyslexics
The recommended seven hands-on learning strategies that can promote learning and support for struggling readers during literacy instruction include Build the Words, Feel the Words, Whole Body Letters, Five Finger Retell, Sight Word BINGO, Elkonin Boxes, and Word Swat.
Children with dyslexia showed reduced quality of life, particularly in areas such as self-esteem and social relationships, with statistically significant differences (p < . 001). Additionally, they exhibited more behavioral problems, especially in aggression and anxiety.
Research by the University of Strathclyde has found that people with dyslexia are much better at being curious and exploring new ideas and more likely to be found in careers where this is an advantage, such as art, media, architecture, creativity, engineering and inventing things!
Confusion between left and right. Struggling with tasks like tying shoes. Mixing up sounds and syllables in long words. Trouble memorizing important things like their address or phone number.
Famous actors like Johnny Depp, Keira Knightly and Orlando Bloom all have dyslexia. Pablo Picasso's teachers described him as “having difficulty differentiating the orientation of letters”.
Difficulty with processing sounds and hence with comprehending lectures. Difficulties with concentration and information processing leading to a lack of understanding. Difficulty with simultaneously listening and writing/typing.
To spot dyslexia, look for persistent struggles with reading, writing, and spelling despite normal intelligence, including difficulty with phonics (blending sounds), slow/laborious reading, trouble memorizing sight words, poor spelling, and challenges with sequencing (like days of the week) or following multi-step directions, appearing as early as preschool with speech/rhyming issues and persisting into adulthood with word-finding difficulties and reading avoidance.
Dyslexia is often thought of as a problem with letter or number reversals (like mixing up b and d, or p and q) or transpositions (12 for 21). Known as motoric dyslexia, this is actually among the least severe and most uncommon of the different types of dyslexia.
According to UMHS, the following conditions can present similar symptoms and difficulties to dyslexia:
The BDA Level 7 Diploma in Dyslexia Assessment and Intervention (AMBDA and AMBDA FE/HE) provides training for individuals who already hold ATS/APS (or equivalent) and have a professional interest in assessment for dyslexia.
Bill Gates, one of the richest people in the world didn't let his dyslexia hold him back.