What Orlando Bloom, Salma Hayek, Erin Brockovich and King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden have in common? Two things: they are planetary popular and they all are dyslexic.
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Dyslexia is very complex and well-known problem, surrounded by myth. It is often assumed that dyslexic people "read backwards" and mix letters, but those are just side-effects of bigger problems. Dyslexic people have difficulties in learning and using written language, problems with learning to speak, they can't connect letters with their sounds, they can't memorize number facts, spelling is a big problem, foreign language is even bigger problem, and mathematical operations are on the verge of mission impossible.
By definition, dyslexia is a language-based learning disability. We don't know the cause for that disorder, we just know that dyslexic people's brain functions differently that brain in "normal" people. That difference leads to problems with identifying the separate speech sounds within a word and/or learning how letters represent those sounds. Now, it is obvious that if person can't connect a letter with a sound, it can't learn how to write and speak, and that in turn means that the person has big problems in school and everyday life.
Some five percent of the school children have a learning disability in reading and language processing. Dyslexia is normally distributed in people of different intellectual levels and cultural backgrounds. Dyslexia runs in families: dyslexic parents are very likely to have dyslexic children. The main problem is with word recognition, spelling, writing and spoken language. However, dyslexia also affects person's self-image and very often pupils are feeling "stupid" which leads to lack of will to learn and study.
There are some symptoms that may point to dyslexia. The fastest test is to ask the person to point to your left foot with his right hand. If he can't that's dyslexia. Tell the person to follow directions: "Go to the end of the street, then turn left, then left, then right". If he is lost and can't follow that turns, that's dyslexia.
Spelling is another very simple yet very effective test. Dyslexic children have difficulties with spelling of short words: any, many, island, said, they, friend. We must say here that other languages have other problematic words that depend on language characteristics. In English, dyslexic children will confuse pairs please/pleeze, knock/nock, search/serch...
Dyslexic children may know and write all letters of the word but it will write it in the wrong order. Example: siad/said, bule/blue, becuase/because. Again, in other languages those pairs are different. Another good example how dyslexic people see symbols on paper is word "cat".
They may see "cat", "tac", "cta"; they may see one or more letters upside down, or in the mirror, so the dyslexic person will see one of 40 combinations while non-dyslexic sees only one: cat.
To detect dyslexia without any doubt there's no other way but the formal test. There is very well developed process called Response to Intervention (RTI) which detects people with dyslexia. So, slow learning, bad writing and slow speaking are not enough to conclude that someone has dyslexia. The tests are usually done in kindergarten, but it can be done at every point in life since dyslexia can come to the surface at any age. The tests include listening and expressive language skills, phonemic awareness, and student's ability to rapidly name letters and names.
If test shows that the person is dyslexic, an individualized intervention plan should be developed. In plain English that means that every person needs different type of help and trained specialists are working one on one with a dyslexic person; there's no such thing as "group therapy".
Since dyslexia is brain-related disorder, which means that it is present through whole life. Early identification is the key and if dyslexics people get the appropriate treatment they can learn to read and speak so well that you can't tell that they had a problem.
They learn how to learn in their own specific way and they use those skills later in life and thus we can set another, and maybe more appropriate definition of dyslexia: that is a state of mind which requires a different type of learning. Nothing less, nothing more. ■
Dyslexic children may know and write all letters of the word but it will write it in the wrong order. Example: siad/said, bule/blue, becuase/because. Again, in other languages those pairs are different. Another good example how dyslexic people see symbols on paper is word "cat".