Dyslexia refers to a learning disorder that encompasses reading challenges because of decoding (learning how to associate letters and words) and speech sound identification problems. Dyslexia is also known as a reading disability that affects the language processing brain regions. It is a neurobiological disability that is characterized by poor spelling, decoding abilities, and speech fluency. These challenges accrue from phonological element deficits of language that is usually unanticipated concerning other cognitive capabilities. Dyslexic individuals exhibit normal vision and intelligence. Kids with dyslexia are usually hardworking and smart despite challenges in linking letters they see and their sounds (Snowling et al., 2020). At many times dyslexia children can prosper in education through tutoring or provision of specialized education programs. It is necessary to provide emotional support to dyslexia children because it plays an essential role in their success. Phonological dyslexia or auditory dyslexia, which encompasses challenges in dividing words into smaller units. Surface dyslexia or visual dyslexia encompasses difficulties in acknowledging words by vision. Also, rapid naming deficit encompasses challenges in naming a number or letter when a child sees it. Lastly, double deficit dyslexia encompasses having trouble isolating sounds to numbers and letters.
Symptoms
Dyslexia affects children in various ways; thus, the symptoms vary across children with dyslexia. Each dyslexia child has unique strength and weakness patterns. Preschool and school children with dyslexia exhibit various symptoms. First, the common dyslexia symptoms among preschool children include speech development delays compared to normally developing children. These children take a longer time to speak and matching letters to sounds. These children experience speech problems like the inability to pronounce extended words and phrase jumbling properly; for instance, a child can say “beddy tear” in place of a “teddy bear” (Giovagnoli et al., 2020). Also, preschool children experience challenges in expressing themselves particularly using spoken language. For instance, a child cannot recall the appropriate word to use or join the sentences incorrectly. Besides, these children have little comprehension or rhyming words appreciation like nursery rhymes. Lastly, these children experience challenges or become less interested in learning alphabet letters.
On the other hand, school children with dyslexia also experience various common dyslexia signs. When children start focusing on learning how to write and read, dyslexia symptoms become more apparent (children aged between 5 and 12 years). These children experience difficulties in learning letter sounds and names. Their spelling is inconsistent and unpredictable, and they usually put figures and letters in the wrong way. They typically reverse figures and letters; for instance, they can write “d” instead of “b.” They also confuse the letters’ order in words, and they like reading slowly because they make mistakes when reading loudly (Alt et al., 2017). Also, they experience visual disturbances, especially when reading. These children usually have poor handwriting, a slow rate of writing, and poor phonological awareness. Dyslexia children have challenges writing answers down despite providing correct answers orally. The concentration level of these children is low because of struggling to write or read. Lastly, they experience difficulties copying written language and usually struggle with learning sequences.
Course of disorder
Dyslexia progresses from childhood through adolescents and adulthood when left untreated from childhood. In other cases, it is impossible to diagnose dyslexia children until adulthood. In different situations, adults diagnosed with dyslexia experience change in symptoms as they age. Dyslexia adults usually experience broad and nonspecific work, mental health, and emotional problems. Besides, in other individuals, dyslexia condition improves naturally as they continue to develop their higher learning functions. There are various common dyslexia symptoms among adults. Adults exhibit poor spelling and struggle to recall things like telephone numbers (Giovagnoli et al., 2020). At many times adults with dyslexia experience difficulties in meeting the deadlines of assigned duties. Besides, they experience problems copying or taking notes, and their written work is poorly organized. They also tend to avoid writing and reading whenever possible because of the writing and work planning challenges. They rarely read for pleasure, and instead, they use other modes of learning. They tend to confuse similar words and experience challenges with written communication. Lastly, adults experience difficulties in spatial reasoning like map reading.
Epidemiology
In America, between 5 and 10% of the population have dyslexia symptoms like slow reading, word mixing, and word spelling challenges. Approximately 14% of school children have a handicapping condition that necessitates special education. 50% of the special education students have a learning disability, and among these students, 85% have primary learning deficits, particularly language processing and reading difficulties. 18% of disabled students exhibit dyslexia symptoms like poor writing, inaccurate or slow reading, word mixing, and poor spelling (IDA, 2021). Dyslexia affects children from all backgrounds, gender, and intellectual levels. The percentage of dyslexic boys is slightly higher than that of girls. Dyslexic children are usually gifted in drama, mathematics, sales, computer science, electronics, and physics. Dyslexia prevalence varies across research. According to the Utah dyslexia center, between 70 and 80% of individuals with poor reading skills have a high probability of being dyslexic. Out of five children, one has a language-based learning disability. Children from language-minority and high poverty populations have a higher risk of experiencing reading failure. Between 70 and 80% of children from high poverty and minority educational institutions have insufficient reading skills (Dyslexia Center of Utah, 2021). 20% of the nationwide school population experience reading challenges, while 30% of dyslexic children have mild ADHD.
Etiology
Most researchers are not sure why some individuals develop dyslexia. However, most researchers have linked dyslexia to biological causes. Heredity and genes are believed to play a significant role whereby dyslexia usually runs in families. Around 40% of children of dyslexic families also experience reading problems. 49% of parents with dyslexic children also have dyslexia. Researchers have also discovered genes associated with language processing and reading problems like the DCDC2 gene. Most dyslectic children acquire dyslexia from birth. Brain activities and anatomy also contribute to the dyslexic condition. Brain imaging research indicates that brain disparities between dyslexic children and those without dyslexia. The brain disparities occur in primary reading skills brain regions. Most studies suggest that dyslexic children are more “right-brain thinkers.” Usually, the brain’s right hemisphere is linked with visual, lateral, and creative thought processes. Neurological disparities provide dyslexic children with specific learning and thinking ways. Thus, dyslexic children have cognitive ability patterns that indicate strength and weakness areas. Some studies have also classified dyslexia types based on causes. For instance, based on biological causes, there are two forms of dyslexia: primary and secondary dyslexia. The common dyslexia form is the primary one. It is a dysfunction instead of damage to the cerebral cortex. Secondary dyslexia, on the other hand, is caused by brain development problems in the early phases of fetal development. It usually disappears as children grow to maturity.
Treatment
Currently, there is no single known treatment for dyslexia. However, early diagnosis and evaluation aids in suitable treatment strategies to improve success. Physical therapy is one behavioral method that boosts awareness among dyslexic children (Malak et al., 2017). It aims to improve their quality of life with the necessary tremor. Various educational interventions will aid dyslexic children in writing and reading since the disorder is a lifelong illness. Most educational interventions are most effective, particularly when they are provided from a younger age. The degree and type of educational intervention required, rely on the severity of a child’s problems. Usually, particular plans are established and implemented in schools. Educators can establish a profound support system in various ways. First, they should listen to dyslexic learners’ feelings. Dyslexic children usually exhibit depression, anxiety, and anger, but their language difficulties usually make it challenging for them to convey their feelings. Thus, there is a need for parents and educators to help such children learn to express their feelings. Educators should use rewards for dyslexic learners and emphasize progress instead of grades. Educators and parents should not inadvertently deter dyslexic children, particularly when confronting unsatisfactory behavior, by using discouraging words like lazy. Besides, educators should help learners set realistic goals and objectives because most dyslexic children set unattainable goals.
Classroom strategies
Education institutions should implement academic modifications and accommodations that will aid dyslexic learners to prosper. For instance, a dyslexic learner can be provided with additional time to finish tasks, appropriately modified assignments, and helping them take notes. Educators can provide these students with taped tests or allow them to employ alternative assessment means. Learners can benefit from recorded syllabus content, computer programs for word processing, and text reading (Stuart and Yates, 2018). Teaching dyslexic learners across educational settings is difficult because special education and general education educators look for accommodations that facilitate learning and heterogeneous classroom management. There is a need for educators to identify reasonable accommodations that suits every classroom setting. Some of the accommodations that can provide a better framework to help dyslexic learners to achieve special education and general education classroom goals include;
Material accommodations
In educational institution settings, learners spend most of their time associating with materials. Instructional materials provide educators with few teaching activities and directions, particularly for large-sized classes with diverse learning rates and ways. Some material accommodations that will enhance learning in a diverse class include clarifying and simplifying written directions. For instance, paragraphs contain several information units, which can overwhelm learners; thus, educators should highlight important parts or rewrite the directions. Educators can also present learners with small amounts of activities, provide additional practice activities and develop reading guides. Besides, educators can use audio recording devices to enable dyslexic learners to access lesson content for clarity purposes. Also, educators can provide learners with glossary, particularly in content areas, or use technology aids like electronic spellers and audiobooks.
Interactive instruction accommodations
Educators require diverse managerial and teaching skills to gain learners’ attention and engage them for some time. Classroom interactions and teaching are meant to provide fruitful learning experiences for each learner. Some of the interactive instruction accommodations include asking slow learners to repeat directions using their words. Educators can employ specific teaching procedures like classroom skill demonstrations and corrective feedback (Pujar and Shailaja, n.d). An educator should maintain daily routines and provide learners with lesson notes copies. Besides, an educator should focus on daily reviews, mnemonic instruction use, and step-by-step instructions. Lastly, educators can join visual and verbal information and provide balanced activities and presentations.
Student performance accommodations
Most learners have diverse capabilities and different modes of response. For instance, learners differ in their oral presentation capabilities, writing and reading, and discussion participation. Moreover, learners differ in their information processing capacities presented in audio and visual formats (Andreou et al., 2018). Some of the student performance accommodations include modifying response modes like multiple-choice selections, marking, or underlining. Educators can provide dyslexic learners with lesson outlines to successfully track a lesson and make correct notes. Teachers should encourage learners to employ graphic organizers, assignment calendars, and books. Educators should arrange a classroom in that dyslexic learners sit in the front or close to an educator. Cues are essential for educators during teaching, and teachers should have a flexible time to allow slow learners like dyslexic children to complete written activities. Lastly, teachers should use work samples to aid dyslexic learners in planning accordingly and realize the expectations.
A critical theory analysis
The definition of dyslexia is entirely behavioral because it involves dyslexic children’s intelligence and capabilities. Therefore, this part will provide critical analysis of the behavioral theories associated with dyslexia disorder. The theories aid us in developing a more understanding of the disorder.
- Phonological theory
The theory argues that dyslexic children have an explicit impairment in retrieving, representing, and storing speech sounds. Alphabetic system learning requires grapheme-phoneme learning (letter and speech sound correspondence). When sounds are improperly represented, retrieved, or stored, grapheme-phoneme learning is affected (Kuerten et al., 2019). The theory assumes that there is an understandable relationship between behavioral problems and cognitive deficits. Dyslexic learners perform poorly specifically on phonological awareness activities like speech sound manipulation.
However, the theory provides shallow information concerning phonological deficits and reading retardation because dyslexia is more extended. Dyslexia encompasses learning, sensory, and motor processes; thus, the phonological deficit is a single disorder element. The phonological theory fails to elaborate on sensory and motor disorder occurrences in dyslexic children.
- Rapid auditory processing theory
The theory argues that deficits are based on slow or quick sound variance perceptions because dyslexic children exhibit poor performance on several auditory activities like temporal order judgment and frequency differentiation. There are also exceptional neurophysiological responses to different auditory stimuli. Thus, poor performance mirrors slow sounds and quick transitions, leading to additional challenges, especially when acoustic activities are phonemic contrast cues. Therefore, auditory deficits cause phonological deficits, which result in learning to read challenges.
- Magnocellular theory
Magnocellular theory generalizes the findings from visual theory. It argues that magnocellular dysfunction is generalized to every modality (tactile, visual, and auditory) and not limited to visual pathways (Stein, 2018). The theory managed to integrate all known dyslexia manifestations like tactile, visual, phonological, auditory, and motor. Dyslexia auditory and visual disorders are general to magnocellular dysfunction.
However, the theory has failed to replicate dyslexia auditory disorder findings. Besides, there is an inconsistency between magnocellular results and the auditory deficit idea of rapid auditory processing. It also fails to replicate visual deficit findings.
Conclusion
Dyslexia is a learning disorder involving speech sound identification and decoding problems in children. It is biologically caused through genetics and has symptoms like delayed speech development, phrase jumbling, spelling problems, poor handwriting, and phonological awareness. The disorder progresses to adulthood, where individuals experience challenges in taking notes. Adults also do not organize their work and tend to avoid reading and writing. The disorder mostly affects boys than girls. Therapies are provided to dyslexic individuals to facilitate behavior change. Also, other treatment methods are provided to children in classrooms like material, interactive instruction, and student performance accommodations to aid them in achieving academic success. Various theories like pomological, rapid auditory processing and magnocellular theories help us to understand the underlying behavior of dyslexic children.
References
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Andreou, G., Athanasiadou, P., & Tzivinikou, S. (2019). Accommodations on reading comprehension assessment for students with learning disabilities: A review study. Psychology, 10(04), 521.
Dyslexia Center of Utah, (2021). Statistics. Retrieved from: https://www.dyslexiacenterofutah.org/Statistics
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IDA, (2021).Dyslexia basics. Retrieved from: https://dyslexiaida.org/dyslexia-basics/
Kuerten, A. B., Mota, M. B., & Segaert, K. (2019). Developmental dyslexia: a condensed review of literature. Ilha do Desterro, 72(3), 249-270.
Malak, R., Mojs, E., Ziarko, M., Wiecheć, K., Sudoł, A., & Samborski, W. (2017). The role of Tomatis sound therapy in the treatment of difficulties in reading in children with developmental dyslexia. Journal of Psychology and Cognition, 2(1).
Pujar, I., & Shailaja, H. M. Teaching Approaches for Children with Dyslexia.
Snowling, M. J., Hulme, C., & Nation, K. (2020). Defining and understanding dyslexia: past, present and future. Oxford Review of Education, 46(4), 501-513.
Stein, J. (2018). The magnocellular theory of developmental dyslexia. In Reading and dyslexia (pp. 103-134). Springer, Cham.
Stuart, A., & Yates, A. (2018). Inclusive classroom strategies for raising the achievement of students with dyslexia. New Zealand Journal of Teachers’ Work, 15(2), 100-104.
