Symptoms of Dyslexia

How To Diagnose Dyslexia in Children

To recognize symptoms of dyslexia, let's first define it. Sally Shaywitz, author of Overcoming Dyslexia, is the authority on this subject, and her definition is simple: Dyslexia is an "unexpected difficulty with reading."
Learn more about dyslexia in children

There are a lot of dyslexia myths. Dyslexia does not necessarily mean that a child is below grade level with their reading. It means rather that there is a discrepancy between performance in other academic areas and reading, a discrepancy that can persist.

A formal diagnosis requires a comprehensive record of the person's developmental and medical history, and an evaluation of visual, hearing, and neurological functions, carried out by a learning clinician. However, in many cases this is unnecessary -- using the symptoms of dyslexia checklist below, you may be able to decide that your child clearly is or clearly is not dyslexic.
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Signs of Dyslexia

According to Sally Shaywitz, author of Overcoming Dyslexia, up to 40% of children do not take to reading easily. This is not surprising -- reading is a relatively new human invention and so there it no reading region in the brain. This is why development of reading skills is so unpredictable.

If you have concerns that your child has dyslexia, here is a short checklist of dyslexia symptoms. Signs of dyslexia include difficulty in:

• learning to speak
  
• learning letters and their sounds
  
• organizing written and spoken language
  
• spelling
  
• reading
  
• memorizing number facts
  

For reading and spelling symptoms in detail, see our list below. The symptoms of dyslexia will vary by age.

Dyslexia Symptoms In Detail

Dyslexic children have symptoms related to the errors they make -- they tend not to make random errors that differ on each page, but rather specific errors that repeat consistently. Most dyslexics will exhibit about 10 of the following symptoms, traits and behaviors. These characteristics can vary from day-to-day or minute-to-minute. The most consistent thing about dyslexics is their inconsistency.

Dyslexia Symptoms in Reading
Given that dyslexia is primarily a reading difficulty, the most common signs of dyslexia appear in reading, such as:

• Can be helped with a word on a page, but won't recognize it on the next page.


• Knows phonics, but cannot sound out unknown words.


• May insert or leave out letters or mix letters up, such as form-from, or star-stair.


• When reading aloud, reads in a slow, choppy, often monotonous cadence (not using prosody or natural emphasis) and often ignores punctuation.


• Becomes visibly tired after reading for only a short time.


• Reading comprehension may be low due to spending so much energy decoding. Listening comprehension is often better than reading comprehension.


• Substitutes a word that means the same thing but doesn't look at all similar, e.g., fast for speed.


• Misreads, omits or even adds small function words such as an, were.

Dyslexia Symptoms in Hearing and Speech
Research has revealed a dramatic link between the abnormal development of spoken language and learning disabilities such as dyslexia. A study in 1970 by Doctor Renate Valtin first discovered a greater frequency of speech disturbances among dyslexic children than normal readers. Studies suggest about 60% of dyslexics were late talkers. Here are some specific symptoms:

• Hears things not said or apparent to others; easily distracted by sounds.


• Difficulty with multi-step directions.


• Difficulty putting thoughts into words; speaks in halting phrases; leaves sentences incomplete; stutters under stress; mispronounces long words, or transposes phrases, words, and syllables when speaking.

Dyslexia Symptoms in Learning, Memory and Cognition
The signs and symptoms mentioned below are often associated with dyslexia if they are unexpected for the child`s age group, level of educational or cognitive abilities.

• Excellent long-term memory for experiences, locations, and faces.


• Poor memory for sequences, facts and information that has not been experienced. Many dyslexic children have trouble with sequencing, i.e., perceiving something in sequence, and also remembering the sequence. Naturally this will affect their ability to read and spell correctly.


• Thinks primarily with images and feeling, not sounds or words (little internal dialogue).

Dyslexia Symptoms in Behavior, Health, Development and Personality These signs of dyslexia use non learning behaviors to detect the cognitive or other difficulties that most often point to a dyslexia diagnosis. Most dyslexic children will have at least 1-2 of these symptoms:

• Extremely disorderly or compulsively orderly.


• Can be class clown, trouble-maker, or too quiet.


• Had unusually early or late developmental stages (talking, crawling, walking, tying shoes).


• Prone to ear infections; sensitive to foods, additives, and chemical products.


• Can be an extra deep or light sleeper; bed wetting beyond appropriate age.


• Unusually high or low tolerance for pain.


• Strong sense of justice; emotionally sensitive; strives for perfection.


• Mistakes and symptoms increase dramatically with confusion, time pressure, emotional stress, or poor health.

Dyslexia Symptoms in Spelling
Dyslexia and spelling difficulties almost go hand in hand. In fact, often spelling is worse than the reading. Here are some classic symptoms indicative of dyslexia:

• Extreme difficulty with vowel sounds, and often leaves them out.


• With enormous effort, may be able to "memorize" Monday's spelling list long enough to pass Friday's spelling test, but can't spell those very same words two hours later when writing those words in sentences.


• Continually misspells high frequency sight words (non phonetic but very common words) such as they, what, where, does and because -- despite extensive practice.


• Misspells even when copying something from the board or from a book.


• Written work shows signs of spelling uncertainty -- numerous erasures, cross outs, etc.

Early Signs of Dyslexia

If a young child cannot hear "cat" as containing three sounds -- |c| |a| |t| -- sounding out words is not going to be easy, and decoding will require much more effort than it should. Children switch d's and b's not because they see them the same, but because they hear them the same.

Slow auditory processing undermines working memory and a number of other skills that impact reading. The fact that language processing is the most common cause of dyslexia is not surprising. Processing language is not easy. It is lightning fast -- "one, one thousand" is one second, but there are 12+ separate sounds in there to be processed, heard and understood.
Treatment for auditory processing difficulties

Dyslexia in Children, 4th Grade and Higher

Many children get to 4th grade or even later before dyslexia symptoms are observable. These children have been able to get by with memorization and/or an ability to multi-task (concentrate on decoding and comprehension) as long as the text is simple. But as the reading comprehension gets challenging their reading problems "suddenly" surface. Very often an inefficient decoding style can only be detected at this point when reading comprehension does not develop as expected.

Most Dyslexia Symptoms Can Be Treated

We provide dyslexia help for all ages, using adaptive cognitive software that treats the underlying causes of difficulty and then fills in the reading skill gaps with an individualized series of reading exercises.
Dyslexia treatment steps

If you are unsure of how to diagnose dyslexia for your child -- the symptoms list above is not that helpful -- call an educational consultant at 877-914-4366 and we may be able to help you understand your child's symptoms and whether the errors being made are random and normal, or whether they are indeed signs of dyslexia. Either call now or send us an email to ask a question or to schedule a consult appointment.