Dyslexia Explained

What Dyslexia Means for Your Child

By Dr. Holly Shapiro, Director of Ravinia Reading Center
Continued from Page One of Reading Difficulties

The word dyslexia means the struggle with learning to read despite intellectual, motivational, and educational resources. It's from the Greek dys meaning difficult and lexia from the root meaning word. Difficulty with words. But it's not that simple.

Dyslexia is not an all-or-nothing proposition; rather, it exists on a continuum from mild to not so mild. The word itself doesn't tell you where on the continuum your child is, but it does tell you that your child's reading difficulties exist in a sea of strengths. Your child's vocabulary, reasoning and understanding are all good to excellent. He or she may only struggle to think about words in the new ways that reading requires.

Researchers have found that some pathways in the brain function differently in children with dyslexia even with the bounty of books and language to which our children are exposed. Parents should not worry that they didn't read to their child enough. That is not a cause of dyslexia.

Misconceptions about dyslexia are abundant and we think it's important to dispel these ideas so that children can get the help they need. Over- and underreactions are inevitable with misinformation.

It is commonly thought that children with dyslexia always reverse letters. This is not true. Visual deficits such as eye tracking, or eye muscle problems do not cause or contribute to reading problems, and vision therapy, special glasses or lenses will not help. If someone is telling you that a reading problem is related to vision, be sure to check with an eye doctor with a medical degree. Consult an ophthalmologist, not an optometrist.

It's also not true that more boys are dyslexics than girls. As it turns out, boys and girls struggle in almost equal proportion. Dyslexia has been called a lot of things by people who do not understand it: a medical diagnosis, a scary label, or nonexistent all together. None of these are true.

Sometimes adults who have become successful emerge to speak about their earlier reading difficulties. Heads of corporations, lawyers, scientists, artists and writers all have among their ranks those who struggled to read as children. How did they overcome their reading difficulties? By working hard to learn. Reading was, for many brilliant men and women from professions across the board, an uphill battle. Children who learn to read with far greater effort than their peers still can go on to conquer the world, or at least the part of it that interests them.

Leonardo Da Vinci is a good reminder of the wealth of talent and brilliance that a person with dyslexia can possess. From the Mona Lisa to his writings on human flight, Da Vinci was a great painter, designer, scientist, inventor, futurist and thinker. It has been suggested that his trouble with reading and writing may have forced him to use alternative pathways for thinking that the easy reader does not have to exercise.

Albert Einstein. Pablo Picasso. Jay Leno. Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein. John Irving, author, and Academy Award-winning screenwriter. Graeme Hammond, cardiothoracic surgeon. Archer Martin , 1952 Nobel Laureate chemist. Charles Schwab, financial services innovator. David Boies, attorney and Time magazine Person of the Year 2000. All troubled readers.

Thomas Edison was thrown out of school when he was 12 because he had difficulty with words and speech and was terrible at mathematics. But he invented the light bulb, phonograph and had over a thousand other patents in his name. "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration," Edison is credited with saying, and he would have known. Despite his brilliance, learning was hard work for him. Learning may be hard work for your child, too.

Why is it significant to know that these achievers could not read early in their lives? Because, it's important to remember the incredible potential of a child. Even if your child is more interested in science or math than in literature or writing, reading fluently is essential to learning anything. It's entirely possible that your child may eventually enjoy reading once he or she learns how to do it well.

Reading is a skill and it can be taught.

Continued from Reading Difficulties
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