Other countries such as the US, Canada and the UK estimate up to 20% of the population are dyslexic. So that means over 2,500,000 Australians are dyslexic.
Dyslexia is recognised in Australian under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (DDA) and under the Human Rights Commission.
The Prevalence of Dyslexia
Learning disabilities are common, and dyslexia is the most common learning disability. In Australia, 1 in 10 individuals has a learning disability. Eight in 10 individuals with learning disabilities have dyslexia.
Some teachers and parents can mistake a dyslexic child for someone who is lacking intelligence. But the truth is dyslexia has nothing to do with a child's level of intelligence.
It is estimated that 1 out of 10 people have dyslexia. The world has roughly 7.8 billion people living it in, where 780 million of them are dyslexic. More than 40 million US adults have dyslexia, with only 2 million of them receiving a diagnosis.
“Twenty-five percent of CEOs are dyslexic, but many don't want to talk about it,” Chambers, who was Cisco's CEO between 1995 and 2005, told students at MIT last Thursday. It's not clear where Chambers sourced his claim, but the proportion appears to gel with various pieces of research conducted on the topic.
According to statistics, world estimates of the prevalence of dyslexia range from 0.05% (in Turkey) to 33.33% (in Nigeria).
Dyslexia can affect short term memory, so your partner may forget a conversation, a task they have promised to do, or important dates. They may also struggle to remember the names of people they have met or how to get to places they have visited before.
The mental function that causes dyslexia is a gift in the truest sense of the word: a natural ability, a talent. It is something special that enhances the individual. Dyslexics don't all develop the same gifts, but they do have certain mental functions in common.
Most people associate dyslexia with letter reversal and reading difficulty. While these commonly appear in dyslexic individuals, dyslexia can affect so much more than just reading skills. Another common trait in dyslexic individuals is higher emotional intelligence.
Types of Disability
1 in 6 Australians are affected by hearing loss. There are approximately 30,000 Deaf Auslan users with total hearing loss [2]. Over three-quarters (76.8%) of people with disability reported a physical disorder as their main condition.
In psycho-educational assessments, psychologists often use the term 'specific learning disorder' or 'specific learning disorder with impairment in reading' which is characterized as “one where people have difficulties with word reading accuracy, reading rate or fluency and reading comprehension” (The Diagnostic and ...
People often confuse dyslexia and autism for one another or conflate them for their similarities. But they are two completely different disorders that affect the brains of people in different ways. While dyslexia is a learning difficulty, autism is a developmental disorder.
Dyslexia is recognised in Australia under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and by the Human Rights Commission. However, NSW is the only state or territory where it is legally recognised as a learning disability. The Victorian Education Department website describes it as a "learning difficulty".
Dyslexia & NDIS – How you can use your NDIS funding
The NDIS doesn't directly cover dyslexia as a disability, but depending on your situation you may be able to allocate some of your funds to improve your reading skills. The list of disabilities covered by the NDIS is long, but dyslexia isn't on the list.
We often define dyslexia as an “unexpected difficulty in reading”; however, a dyslexic student may also have difficulty with math facts although they are often able to understand and do higher level math quite well.
Perhaps one of the most famous figures known to have dyslexia is Albert Einstein, a theoretical physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921 and has become synonymous with intelligence and wit.
Nonetheless, as discussed above, being dyslexic may make an individual more sensitive and prone to anxious thoughts in certain situations. Personality traits and psychological profiles too play a key role in anxiety levels.
Dyslexia symptoms don't 'get worse' with age. That said, the longer children go without support, the more challenging it is for them to overcome their learning difficulties. A key reason for this is that a child's brain plasticity decreases as they mature. This impacts how quickly children adapt to change.
Children with dyslexia have a higher risk for sleep disorders like not being able to fall asleep or stay asleep at night.
The exact cause of dyslexia is unknown, but it often appears to run in families. It's thought certain genes inherited from your parents may act together in a way that affects how some parts of the brain develop during early life.
AD/HD is one of the most common developmental problems, affecting 3–5% of the school population. It is characterized by inattention, distractibility, hyperactivity and impulsivity. It is estimated that 30% of those with dyslexia have coexisting AD/HD.
Research from Cass Business School in London found that 35% of entrepreneurs in the US and 20% of entrepreneurs in Britain showed signs of dyslexia, compared with just 5–10% of the overall population. In a survey of 69,000 self-made millionaires, 40% of entrepreneurs were found to show signs of dyslexia.