Dyslexia Awareness Month
Staff Newsletter October 2016
So what is dyslexia?
“Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurobiological in origin. It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language that is often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction. Secondary consequences may include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experience that can impede growth of vocabulary and background knowledge.”
(Adopted by the International Dyslexia Association, November 12, 2002)
So what does all that mean?
Click on the following link to learn about the Myths & Truths About Dyslexia...
Signs of Dyslexia of Young Adults
Reading
- A childhood history of reading and spelling difficulties
- While reading skills have developed over time, reading still requires great effort and is done at a slow pace
- Rarely reads for pleasure
- Slow reading of most materials—books, manuals, subtitles in films
- Avoids reading aloud
Speaking
- Not fluent, often anxious while speaking
- Pausing or hesitating often when speaking
- using lots of “um’s” during speaking, lack of glibness
- using imprecise language, for example, “stuff,” “things,” instead of the proper name of an object
- Often pronounces the names of people and places incorrectly; trips over parts of words
- Difficulty remembering names of people and places; confuses names that sound alike
- Struggles to retrieve words; has the “it was on the tip of my tongue” moment frequently
- Rarely has a fast response in conversations and/or writing; struggles when put on the spot
- Spoken vocabulary is smaller than listening vocabulary
- Avoids saying words that might be mispronounced
- Earlier oral language difficulties persist
School & Life
- Despite good grades, will often say that she is dumb or is concerned that peers think that she is dumb
- Penalized by multiple choice tests
- Frequently sacrifices social life for studying
- Suffers extreme fatigue when reading
- Performs rote clerical tasks poorly
Strengths
- The maintenance of strengths noted in the school-age period
- A high learning capability
- A noticeable improvement when given additional time on multiple-choice examinations
- Noticeable excellence when focused on a highly specialized area such as medicine, law, public policy, finance, architecture, or basic science
- Excellence in writing if content and not spelling is important
- A noticeable articulateness in the expression of ideas and feelings
- Exceptional empathy and warmth, and feeling for others
- Success in areas not dependent on rote memory
- A talent for high-level conceptualization and the ability to come up with original insights
- Big-picture thinking
- Inclination to think outside of the box
- A noticeable resilience and ability to adapt
Source: Overcoming Dyslexia