Dyslexia

“A learning disorder characterized by difficulty reading.”
What is Dyslexia?
Dyslexia is a type of reading disability that typically manifests in one or all of the following characteristics: difficulty reading words in isolation, difficulty accurately decoding unfamiliar words, difficulty with oral reading (slow, inaccurate, or labored) and difficulty with spelling.
The exact cause is unknown but these reading difficulties are commonly associated with specific cognitive weaknesses. These include: phonemic awareness, phonological memory, and rapid automatic naming.
A student with dyslexia typically has evenly developed skills in most other cognitive and academic areas, so weaknesses related to reading are unexpected. Current research suggests that students with dyslexia attempt to process reading in Broca’s area alone, instead of synchronizing with Wernicke’s area and the occipital lobe.

Areas effected

The consequences of dyslexia are far-reaching and include:

  • Possible difficulties with reading comprehension
  • Written expression
  • Math calculations

Depending on the nature and severity of the cognitive weaknesses, listening comprehension can also be impacted.

To accurately determine whether a student’s reading difficulties are related to dyslexia, a thorough evaluation is needed that looks at each piece of the academic and cognitive processes mentioned above.

Masquerade
At times, what initially seems like dyslexia to parents and teachers may actually be another type of disability, an instructional issue, a medical issue, or even an environmental issue.

TED talk on Dyslexia

What to know about our Evaluations

When considering an evaluation for dyslexia, parents and teachers should expect not only gold-standard, individually administered assessment tools, but information about classroom performance and observations of reading at home as well. The assessment is a collaborative effort to most accurately and effectively determine the true nature of a child’s difficulties. No single score can determine dyslexia.

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