What can we define dyslexia?
Dyslexia is a neurodevelopmental condition in which children with dyslexia have more difficulty than their peers in learning to read and write.
The intelligence of children with dyslexia is normal, the learning situations in which they have grown up are completely normal, and the cultural environment is typical.
Is there the same pattern of symptoms for dyslexia?
Dyslexia is a neurodevelopmental disorder and there is a variety of boundaries of what dyslexia is, i.e., the boundaries cannot be defined. There are children who have a mild degree of dyslexia and others have a severe degree, it all depends on the difficulty they have in learning to read and write.
In addition, neurodevelopmental disorders often overlap with each other. It is very common for a child with dyslexia to also have dyscalculia (DAM), which is a difficulty in learning mathematics, or to have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). This overlap often makes it difficult to manage the problem.
How do I know if my child has dyslexia?
Points parents can look for to see if their child may have dyslexia are:
- He has a much harder time reading than other children and confuses letters.
- He is not able to sequence, that is, we sequence words in syllables, for example, the word ‘shoe’ has three syllables: za-pa-to; but we have to put them in order, because if we say pa-za-to it does not make sense. This is the basis of dyslexia, because the sequencing process is very important. Another example is that children with dyslexia have difficulty sequencing the days of the week or, even more simply, they have difficulty sequencing numbers, i.e., putting them in their proper order, and especially vice versa.
What causes dyslexia and are there specific causes?
In principle, pure dyslexia is considered to be the consequence of a modification or variation in several genes, not just one. This makes it very difficult to find a specific gene for dyslexia. Likewise, this pathology is considered to have a genetic basis. These genes have altered the normal development of the brain, causing these children to have this difficulty.
What are the problems in diagnosing dyslexia? Are there other pathologies with which dyslexia can be confused?
If you know a little about dyslexia and take into account the most typical symptoms, such as the child having more difficulty learning to read and write than the rest of his classmates, the diagnosis is easy. The problem, perhaps, is not so much in the diagnosis, but in the acceptance of this problem by educators.
Sometimes it is difficult for educators to accept the diagnosis of dyslexia. A percentage of educators have had a training in which no importance has been given to the biological processes that have to do with development: Attention Deficit Disorder, Dyslexia, Dyscalculia.
The dramatic thing is that when it is not understood that the child has dyslexia and the blame is attributed to the child. It is thought that the child is lazy, that he/she is not interested, that he/she does not care about things or that he/she has a delay in his/her cognitive development. This is very serious.
What is the prognosis of dyslexia?
Dyslexia is a condition that improves spontaneously over time.
Although in some cases the problem is so severe that it poses great difficulties in reading and writing. For example, I have treated patients where the mother has to read to the child the lesson he has to do for school, and the child is unable to read it even though he is intelligent. In this way the child retains what the mother has told him.