What is Dyslexia?. Dyslexia is a neurobiological disorder that affects the development of both...
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Transcript of What is Dyslexia?. Dyslexia is a neurobiological disorder that affects the development of both...
What is Dyslexia?
• Dyslexia is a neurobiological disorder
that affects the development of both
decoding (written word pronunciation)
and encoding (spelling).
• People with dyslexia have difficulty
reading fluently and spelling words
correctly, even after years of instruction.
Causes
• Genetic disposition leads to
• problems with the perception of acoustic cues
• problems with visual perception
Some Common Misconceptions
• Myth: Students who flip numbers and letters have dyslexia.
• Fact: Some students with dyslexia showthis feature, but this is not the key feature that defines dyslexia. Laborious
reading and poor spelling is.
• Myth: Dyslexia can be cured with enough reading practice.
• Fact: Dyslexia cannot be cured because it is a disorder of the brain. However, strategies can help
students with dyslexia compensate for their
difficulties.
• Myth: Students with dyslexia have a
lower IQ.
• Fact: Students with dyslexia are just
like everyone. They just have difficulty
reading. Some even learn to
compensate for their disability and
become very good at other things that
don’t involve reading.
• Myth: Dyslexia only occurs in English because it is a very irregular language. In “easy” languages like Spanish, there
is no dyslexia.
• Fact: Remember, dyslexia is a neurobiological disorder (i.e. brain- based disorder), not a language based
disorder. The language a person reads,however, will determine how dyslexia occurs.
Further facts
• 15.5% of the global population carry the
genetic predisposition for dyslexia,
• the ratio identified as dyslexic depends
on the transparency of the language
used, awareness of dyslexia and
availability of trained diagnosticians.
• Dyslexia is a hidden disability.
• Many adults do not know that they are dyslexic.
Strenghts
• Good at ideas and innovative thinking.
• Good problem solver & lateral thinker.
• Creative in the way they make links and
connections.
• Strong in the areas of art, music, design, architecture and
engineering.
• Good with practical tasks and creative
in many ways.
• Good communicators.
• Have excellent visual and spatial awareness.
Difficulties
• Erratic spelling.
• Misreading, leading to comprehension
difficulties.
• Personal organization.
• Difficulties with sequences e.g. date order.
• Ability to solve problems but inability to show process.
• Poor organisation or time management.
• Inaccurate number work.
Dyslexia across different
languages
The role of orthography
Orthography, or how a language is
represented in writing, impacts reading
and writing development and can
represent varying difficulties to
speakers of a specific language who
have dyslexia.
The most common orthographies today:
• alphabetic: e.g. Finnish
letter a sound /a/
letter k sound /k/
letters aa sound /a:/ (long)
letter v sound /v/
• syllabic: e.g. Japanese Kana:
a symbol corresponds to a syllable
• logographic: Chinese
a symbol corresponds to word
Alphabetic Orthographies
„Shallow“ and „deep“ orthographies
• Shallow orthographies have a one to one correspondence between letters and sounds. The language is written as it sounds.
• Deep orthographies have multiple mappings between letters and sounds. Spelling patterns are irregular and don‘t follow the sounds of the language.
Shallow alphabetic orthographiese.g. Spanish
• Characterized by slow, but not
necessarily inaccurate, reading.
• Once Spanish-speaking readers with dyslexia master the letters and corresponding sounds of the alphabet, the one-to-one correspondence between sounds and letters facilitates their reading and spelling.
• They never become fluent.
• They don’t get the meaning from the text because they are so concerned with reading.
Deep alphabetic orthographiese.g. English
• In addition to slow and inaccurate reading, these students will have persistent poor spelling.
• Poor phonological awareness (manipulating the sounds that make up each word).
• Students can’t remember the irregularities of the language, even after years of reading instruction
• Dyslexia in deep orthographies is pretty obvious.
Dyslexia in adults
• Most of the research on dyslexia has been done in relation to children and the acquisition of literacy.
• Adults often have persistent literacy problems unless they have received dyslexia friendly teaching.
• Primary problems for adults are those associated with a weak working memory, such as personal organisation.
• There are many adult dyslexics, who have not been diagnosed as dyslexic in their youth; consequences are among others psychosomatic problems, low self - esteem; different problems depending on the individual.
Conclusions
• Lower rates of identification in areas where the language is more transparent than English, means that more employees are unaware of their dyslexia.
• Where the language is transparent:
There is likely to be less awareness of dyslexia within employing organisations;
there are likely to be less reasonable adjustments offered to adults with dyslexia.
A few suggestions how to
manage dyslexia at work
•Know the signs
•Seek confirmation
•Provide support
•Use technology
•Look at your practices
•Consider individual needs
•Seek specialist help
•Increase awareness
Key points
•Dyslexia need not be a barrier to success!
•Dyslexia is common - an organisation with 50-100 employees could have up to 10 workers who are dyslexic.
•Adjustments can help to maximise potential.
•Do not generalise – treat each case individually.
For the dyslexic...
•Slow down.
•Get organized.
•Do not be ashamed to use a reading aid(e).
•Spell check is your friend.
•Be confident!