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Developmental dyslexia is reading disorder that emerges in childhood.
The primary deficit involves impaired single word decoding, word recognition, and spelling.
It may affect a child’s reading rate, comprehension, and written expression.
Presumed to stem from a core linguistic deficit in phonological processing.
Estimated that 7% of the population has this type of a learning disorder.
Functional imaging studies point to this function of the left posterior temporoparietal, occipital temporal, and inferior frontal gyrus areas of the brain, which are involved in phonological processing and word recognition.
Dyslexia is a genetic disorder of the cerebral cortex, whereby decreased folding in certain areas results in a microgyrus, where there are four layers instead of six.
Dyslexia is a learning disorder that involves difficulty reading due to problems identifying speech sounds and learning how they relate to letters and words.
Also called reading disability, dyslexia affects areas of the brain that process language.
Patients have normal intelligence and usually have normal vision.
Tends to run in families, as it is linked to genes that affect how the brain processes reading and language, as well as risk factors in the environment.
Dyslexia risk factors include: family history of dyslexia or other learning disabilities, premature birth or low birth weight and exposure during pregnancy to nicotine, drugs, alcohol or infection that may alter brain development in the fetus.
Most children can succeed in school with tutoring or a specialized education program.
Emotional support plays an important role.
No cure for dyslexia.
Early assessment and intervention have the best outcomes.
Sometimes it goes undiagnosed for years and isn’t recognized until adulthood.
The condition often becomes apparent as a child starts learning to read.
Signs that a young child may be at risk of dyslexia include:
Late talking
Learning new words slowly
Problems forming words correctly
Reversing sounds in words or confusing words that sound alike
Problems remembering or naming letters, numbers and colors
Difficulty learning nursery rhymes or playing rhyming games
Dyslexia signs and symptoms may become more apparent upon entering school and may manifest as:
Reading well below the expected level for age
Problems processing and understanding
Difficulty finding the right word or forming answers to questions
Problems remembering the sequence of things
Difficulty seeing similarities and differences in letters and words
Inability to sound out the pronunciation of an unfamiliar word
Difficulty spelling.
Spending an unusually long time completing tasks that involve reading or writing
Avoiding reading
The signs of dyslexia in teens and adults are similar to those in children noted above.
When dyslexia goes undiagnosed and untreated during childhood, reading difficulties continue into adulthood.
May lead to low self-esteem, behavior problems, anxiety, aggression, and withdrawal from friends, parents and teachers.
Can have long-term educational, social and economic consequences.
Patients with dyslexia are at increased risk of having attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and vice versa.
ADHD can make dyslexia harder to treat.