The negative traits of dyslexia primarily manifest as difficulties with reading, writing, and spelling, which can lead to significant secondary emotional and social challenges such as anxiety, low self-esteem, and frustration. Dyslexia does not affect general intelligence.
In reality, dyslexia can affect memory, organisation, time-keeping, concentration, multi-tasking and communication. All impact on everyday life.
Challenges and strengths of dyslexia
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.
Children with dyslexia have negative emotions on self-image, peer and family relationships, and social interaction. As for social interaction, children with dyslexia lack social skills due to pressure or low self-esteem, and they have many problems with social adaptive behaviors and personality.
Highly intuitive – Dyslexics often have a strong sense of intuition and heightened emotional intelligence. They can quickly grasp complex concepts and situations, often arriving at conclusions before others.
General signs to look for are:
Three dimensional thinking and making connections
Many people with dyslexia demonstrate better skills at manipulating 3D objects in their mind. Many of the world's top architects and fashion designers have dyslexia.
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”.
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.
The brain of an individual living with dyslexia processes information in a different way than someone who does not have the affliction. This results in difficulty with accurate and automatic word recognition, spelling, and decoding or breaking down words—which is what makes learning so difficult.
Oftentimes, parents fear that a dyslexia diagnosis indicates their child is less intelligent than their peers. Nevertheless, dyslexia is not exclusive to any particular level of intelligence; it can affect individuals with average, above-average, and highly gifted intellect.
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!
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.
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.
Longitudinal data confirm that dyslexia is positively associated with stress and depressive symptoms in children, and the higher the DCCC scores, the more severe their symptoms of stress, anxiety, and depression were. The emotional symptoms can persist among dyslexic children.
Actress Jennifer Aniston has publicly shared that she was diagnosed with dyslexia in her 20s, a diagnosis that explained lifelong struggles with reading, writing, and retaining information, leading her to believe she wasn't smart until discovering the learning disorder. She discovered this during an eye exam, where she realized her eyes jumped words when reading, and the diagnosis helped her understand past difficulties, transforming her self-perception.
Some of these successful entrepreneurs, such as Richard Branson and Charles Schwab, credit their success to dyslexia as one of the contributing factors that lead to the development of their innovative thinking and their remarkable success.
Ryan Gosling has accumulated praise for movies like The Notebook, La La Land, and Barbie. However, behind this fame, his life's story was full of bravery. The Hollywood hunk faced dyslexia and Adhd as a kid. School was difficult, and bullying made it worse.
For example, many individuals with dyslexia are right-brain dominant. The right and left hemispheres of the brain are organized in a slightly different way. On the right, cells are more evenly distributed (versus in clusters).
Previously, we found children with dyslexia exhibited heightened emotional reactivity, which correlated with better social skills. Whether emotional differences in dyslexia extend to the parasympathetic nervous system—an autonomic branch critical for attention, social engagement, and empathy—is unknown.
Spelling is one of the biggest, and most widely experienced difficulties for the dyslexic child and adult. Most dyslexic people can learn to read well with the right support, however, spelling appears to be a difficulty that persists throughout life.
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.
According to UMHS, the following conditions can present similar symptoms and difficulties to dyslexia: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) Executive Dysfunction. Memory Impairments.
Visual Distortions: Real Examples of Reading with Dyslexia
While trying to process language, people with dyslexia may experience any or all of the following: Text blurring and sentences going out of focus. Wide gaps between words or phrases. Bunched text that appears to be in groups.