Dyslexia

Dyslexia is a neurobiological, language-based disability that persists over time and interferes with an individual's learning.

Primary reading and spelling characteristics of dyslexia:
  • Difficulty reading real words in isolation

  • Difficulty accurately decoding nonsense words

  • Slow, inaccurate, or labored oral reading (lack of reading fluency)

  • Difficulty with learning to spell

Texas Education Code 38.003

Common Risk Factors Associated with Dyslexia

Associated Academic Difficulties


Interesting Facts about Dyslexia

  • More than 25 million Americans struggle with dyslexia

  • One in twenty children have a severe case of dyslexia

  • One in five has a milder case of dyslexia

  • It is estimated that 80% of those with dyslexia have a co-existing attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

Severe Dyslexia

  • Permanent type of dyslexia that improves little with age

  • Found in 3-5% of the population

  • Family History

  • Intensive early training can raise most to a reading level between 4th and 6th

  • Spelling skills rarely rise over 4th grade

 
Mild to Moderate Dyslexia

  • With proper intervention can seem to diminish as a person matures

  • 12-14% of school population

  • Equal ratio- boys to girls

    • More identification in boys (4:1)

  • Family History

Types of Dyslexia

Surface Dyslexia- visual interpretation of printed symbols

    • Most easily diagnosed

    • Has nothing to do with visual acuity

    • Information is “scrambled in the language portion of the left side of the brain"

    • Reversals, transpositions, inversions, mirror images, and scrambled sequences

Dysphonetic Dyslexia- inability to hear separate sounds within spoken language

    • Cortex does not process speech sounds accurately

    • Sounds do not register

    • Use of similar sounding words

    • Chunks of message are left out

    • Blocks development of spelling

    • “Tone deafness"

Mixed Dyslexia - includes characteristics of both types

Dysgraphia- poor graphomotor or writing ability

    • Awkward control of the pencil

    • Cramped or illegible handwriting

    • Many suffer from hand cramps

    • Handwriting gets more illegible the longer they write

    • Appears to draw the letters

 
Resources

Dyslexia Helpline (Region 10) 1-800-232-3030

Texas Dyslexia Handbook (2021)

Child Find Network

TIER Network

Inclusion Network

TEA Dyslexia and Related Disorders

 

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