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What is Dyslexia?
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When Jimmy was in pre-school, he struggled to learn new words. He hated drawing or coloring. He didn't understand how to rhyme words. His teacher noted that Jimmy didn't show a preference between his right and left hands.By the time Jimmy entered elementary school, he still had not learned the alphabet. He had problems relating the letters of the alphabet with their corresponding sounds. Jimmy hated word puzzles, decoding word,s and frequently mixed up multi-syllable words such as "basanga" instead of "lasagna."
As Jimmy entered junior high, his slow reading skills and poor spelling problems with multi-syllable words made him afraid of being teased and caused him to withdraw from the other children. He also struggled with organizational skills and time management. Jimmy's parents frequently heard feedback from teachers that Jimmy wasn't trying hard enough, although they spent hours each evening working with Jimmy to improve his test scores.
In high school, Jimmy became known as a bully. His frustration with his inability to read, spell, write, and speak at grade level had manifested as a physical symptom of his problem. Every day Jimmy thought about dropping out of school but with limited reading and writing abilities, it would be difficult for him to find a job.
Jimmy suffered from a learning disability known as dyslexia.
What is dyslexia?
Introduced in 1884 as ophthalmologist R. Berlin, the term "dyslexia" was used to describe problems with words. Today, dyslexia is used to describe children and adults who are significantly more intelligent then test scores in reading or writing may reveal about their knowledge level.Most people recognize dyslexia as mirror writing, or the reversal of letters. For example: b/d, p/q, n/u and m/w may be confused. Additionally, words or numbers may be reversed such as on/no, was/saw, 25/52 and so forth.
Because mirror writing and the reversal of letters impacts how someone with dyslexia may process words or numbers, dyslexics will frequently struggle with reading, writing, and spelling. They may also have difficulty with sequences.
Imagine for a moment what it would be like if you tried to create a sequence for the following: 25, 50, 75, 100 ….
But this is what this same sequence of numbers may look like to a dyslexic: 52, 50, 57, 100….
What are some of the common symptoms of dyslexia?
- Difficulty learning new words and sounds
- Difficulty with rhyming sounds (e.g. cat, hat, mat)
- Late in establishing a dominant hand (e.g. right hand preference over the left hand)
- Difficulty learning the alphabet and corresponding sounds
- Slow or inaccurate reading
- Very poor spelling
- Difficulty with time management and organizational skills
- Difficulty following a series of directions (e.g. put the ball away on the shelf in the coat closet.)
- When reading stories with pictures, a dyslexic will often make up a story based on the picture that doesn't related to the text whatsoever
- Difficulty copying from the chalk board or from other written documents
- Struggles with reading comprehension and/or remembers little of what he reads
- Difficulty with memorization such as multiplication tables or sequences (e.g. 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, etc.)
Moshe Elbaum, Founder and Developer of the www.intelligence-integration.com method, has taught and helped thousands of children, adolescents, and adults throughout the last 22 years in training centers, colleges, grade schools, and in his private practice in Israel and around the world. .