Darren has Dyslexia, a type of reading disability usually manifested as a difficulty with written language, particularly with reading and spelling.
A person diagnosed with dyslexia is called a dyslexic; and a dyslexic by definition has adequate intelligence. Evidence suggests that it is a result of a difference in how the brain processes written and/or verbal language. It is separate and distinct from reading difficulties resulting from other causes, such as deficiencies in intelligence, non-neurological deficiency with vision or hearing, or from poor or inadequate reading instruction.
Dyslexia is most commonly characterized by difficulties with learning how to decode at the word level, to spell, and to read accurately and fluently. Dyslexic individuals often have difficulty "breaking the code" of sound-letter association (the alphabetic principle), and they may also reverse or transpose letters when writing or confuse letters such as b, d, p, q, especially in childhood. However, dyslexia is not a visual problem that involves reading letters or words backwards or upside down, nor are such reversals a defining characteristic of dyslexia.
Many individuals with dyslexic symptoms involving reading, writing, and spelling also exhibit symptoms in other domains such as poor short-term memory skills, poor personal organizational skills, problems processing spoken language, left-right confusion, difficulties with numeracy or arithmetic, and issues with balance and co-ordination.
Evidence that dyslexia is a neurological syndrome is substantial. Research also suggests an association with biochemical and genetic markers. Although there is no cure for dyslexia, appropriate remedial treatment and compensatory strategies can mitigate its effects.
Early stuttering or cluttering can also be warning signs of dyslexia
congenital word blindness
twisted signs'
poor spelling and decoding abilities
sequencing
Cluttering is a speech fluency disorder involving both the rate and rhythm of speech, and resulting in impaired speech intelligibility. Speech is erratic and dysrhythmic, consulting of rapid and jerky spurts that usually involve faulty phrasing. The personality of the clutterer bears striking resemblance to the personalities of those with learning disabilities.[33]
Individuals with dyslexia:
May be bright, intelligent and articulate, however their reading, writing and spelling level is below their average age group.
Have the same intelligence range as people without dyslexia.
May have poor academic achievement due to their problems with reading and writing.
May have good oral language abilities but will perform much more poorly on similar written-language tests.
Might be labelled lazy, dumb, careless, immature, "not trying hard enough," or as having a "behavior problem."
Because dyslexia primarily affects reading while sparing other intellectual abilities, affected individuals might be categorised as not "behind enough" or "bad enough" to receive additional help in a school setting.
Might feel dumb and have poor self-esteem, and might be easily frustrated and emotional about school reading or testing.
Might try to hide their reading weaknesses with ingenious compensatory "strategies".
Might learn best through hands-on experience, demonstrations, experimentation, observation, and visual aids.
Can show talents in other areas such as art, drama, music, sports, mechanics, story-telling, sales, business, designing, building, or engineering.
Have related problems with attention in a school setting; for instance they might seem to "zone out" or daydream often; get lost easily or lose track of time; and have difficulty sustaining attention.
Many dyslexics also can have problems with speaking clearly. They can mix up sounds in multi-syllabic words (ex: aminal for animal, bisghetti for spaghetti, hekalopter for helicopter, hangaberg for hamburger, mazageen for magazine, etc.) They also can have problems speaking in full sentences. They can have trouble correctly articulating R's and L's as well as M's and N's. They often have "immature" speech. They may still be saying "wed and gween" instead of "red and green" in second or third grade. Many dyslexics might have speech therapy in special education. They may have fast speech, cluttered speech, or hesitant speech[50][51].
Some shared symptoms of the speech/hearing deficits and dyslexia:
Confusion with before/after, right/left, and so on
Difficulty learning the alphabet
Difficulty with word retrieval or naming problems
Difficulty identifying or generating rhyming words, or counting syllables in words (phonological awareness)
Difficulty with hearing and manipulating sounds in words (phonemic awareness)
Difficulty distinguishing different sounds in words (auditory discrimination)
Difficulty in learning the sounds of letters
Difficulty associating individual words with their correct meanings
Confusion with combinations of words
Due to fear of speaking incorrectly, some children become withdrawn and shy or become bullies out of their inability to understand the social cues in their environment
Reading and spelling
Spelling errors — Because of difficulty learning letter-sound correspondences, individuals with dyslexia might tend to misspell words, or leave vowels out of words (e.g., spelling "magic" as mjc).
Letter order - Dyslexics may also reverse the order of two letters especially when the final, incorrect, word looks similar to the intended word (e.g., spelling "dose" instead of "does").
Highly phoneticized spelling - Dyslexics also commonly spell words inconsistently, but in a highly phonetic form such as writing "shud" for "should". Dyslexic individuals also typically have difficulty distinguishing among homophones such as "their" and "there".
Reading — Due to dyslexics' excellent long term memory, young students tend to memorize beginning readers, but are unable to read individual words or phrases.
Vocabulary - Having a small vocabulary.
Writing and motor skills
Because of literacy problems, an individual with dyslexia may have difficulty with handwriting. This can involve slower writing speed than average or poor handwriting characterised by irregularly formed letters. They may use inappropriate words when writing.
Some studies have also reported gross motor difficulties in dyslexia, including motor skills disorder. This difficulty is indicated by clumsiness and poor coordination. The relationship between motor skills and reading difficulties is poorly understood but could be linked to the role of the cerebellum and inner ear in the development of reading and motor abilities.[52]
Good at "hands-on" learning, they seem almost intuitive at figuring out how to do things.
Delay in learning how to tie shoes.
They can utilize the brain's ability to alter and create perceptions.
Highly aware of their environment but seem to be lost
Curious about how things work
Highly intuitive and insightful
They have vivid imaginations
Seems intelligent but reads slow
Uses analogies to talk and explain things.
under stress.
Difficulty sequencing days of week, months of year.
Develops negative, emotional, behavior due to academic performance.
Family blood relatives who also experienced difficulty in acquiring text skills.
Strong graphical skills.
Outstanding building of toy blocks, coloring or drawing.
Outstanding view of the "big picture".
Views the world from different eyes or point of view.
Able to fix/tear apart thing at an early age.
Wants to know how things work and can understand them.
Builds things or invents things
Creative
Left/Right confusions
Slow reader or learning to talk
The word "cat" written on a chalkboard can be perceived in 40 different ways by a dyslexic - with the letters reversed, upside down and sideways. Even though a dyslexic mind works faster than average, sorting though all those mental images to find the correct one makes him appear slow.
Dyslexics are also known for creativity, musical ability and mechanical ability.
Doesn't always understands what is said to them
Loses reading place
Mixing the order of letters/ numbers
Difficulty finding appropriate words
Dyslexia is the ability to see a thing from many points of view, all at once. The primary problem for the dyslexic is that he is capable of processing so much information that it gets garbled, distorted or frozen. There is so much input that, if not filtered what begins as a special, insightful talent, is reduced to a tragic mass of confusion and disability.
Difficulty organizing ideas to write a letter
Messy room, desk, locker or note book
Difficulty expressing oneself
Slow learning the alphabet
Transposes names of people or places
Hesitant in speech
Low self-esteem due to past frustrations.
Makes up a story, based on the illustrations, which bears no relation to the text.
Reads very slowly and hesitantly.
Loses orientation on a line or page while reading, missing lines or reading previously-read lines again.
Reads aloud hesitantly, word by word, monotonously.
Tries to sound the letters of the word, but is then unable to say the correct word. For example, sounds the letters ‘c-a-t’ but then says cold.
Mispronounces words, or puts stress on the wrong syllables.
Reads only in the present tense although the text is in the past.
Foreshortens words, for example ‘portion’ for proportion.
Substitutes another word of similar meaning, for example dog for pup.
Omits prefixes, omits suffixes or adds suffixes.
Reads with poor comprehension, due to spending so much energy trying to read the words.
Remembers little of what he reads.
Spells words as they sound, for example ‘rite’ for right.
Cannot write or match the appropriate letter when given the sound.
Often ignores punctuation. He may omit full stops or commas and fail to see the need for capital letters.
Poor at copying from the board.
Has trouble attaching names to things and people.
Dyslexia Signs: Sequencing Difficulties
Many dyslexics have trouble with sequencing, i.e. perceiving something in sequence and also remembering the sequence. Naturally this will affect their ability to read and spell correctly. After all, every word consists of letters in a specific sequence. In order to read one has to perceive the letters in sequence, and also remember what word is represented by the sequence of letters in question. By simply changing the sequence of the letters in name, it can become mean or amen.
Directional confusion may take a number of forms, from being uncertain of which is left and right to being unable to read a map accurately, says Dr. Beve Hornsby in her book Overcoming Dyslexia. ‘A child should know his left and right by the age of five, and be able to distinguish someone else’s by the age of seven. Directional confusion affects other concepts such as up and down, top and bottom, compass directions, keeping one’s place when playing games, being able to copy the gym teacher’s movements when he is facing you, and so on. As many as eight out of ten severely dyslexic children have directional confusion. bThe percentage is lower for those with a mild condition,’ she says.
She might see some letters as backwards or upside down;
She might see text appearing to jump around on a page;
She might not be able to tell the difference between letters that look similar in shape such as o and e and c ;
She might not be able to tell the difference between letters that have similar shape but different orientation, such as b and p and d and q ;
The letters might look all jumbled up and out of order;
The letters and words might look all bunched together;
The letters of some words might appear completely backwards, such as the word bird looking like drib ;
The letters and words might look o.k., but the dyslexic person might get a severe headache or feel sick to her stomach every time she tries to read;
She might see the letters o.k., but not be able to sound out words -- that is, not be able to connect the letters to the sounds they make and understand them;
She might be able to connect the letters and sound out words, but not recognize words she has seen before, no matter how many times she has seen them -- each time she would have to start fresh;
She might be able to read the words o.k. but not be able to make sense of or remember what she reads, so that she finds herself coming back to read the same passage over and over again.
Excellent long-term memory for experiences, locations, and faces.
Poor memory for sequences, facts and information that has not been experienced.
Thinks primarily with images and feeling, not sounds or words (little internal dialogue).
Extremely disorderly or compulsively orderly.
Can be class clown, trouble-maker, or too quiet.
Had unusually early or late developmental stages (talking, crawling, walking, tying shoes).
Prone to ear infections; sensitive to foods, additives, and chemical products.
Can be an extra deep or light sleeper; bedwetting beyond appropriate age.
Unusually high or low tolerance for pain.
Strong sense of justice; emotionally sensitive; strives for perfection.
Mistakes and symptoms increase dramatically with confusion, time pressure, emotional stress, or poor health.
