WHAT ARE THE SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS OF VISUAL DYSLEXIA
Not every sign or symptom of the dyslexic profile presents itself in each dyslexic person, although there is usually evidence of a sufficient cluster of these to lead to a diagnosis. It should be noted that dyslexia tends to run in families, so there may be a history of it. Asking parents, however, may not be enough, as often a parent will not have recognised it when he/she was at school. Many only realise the condition once their children are diagnosed.
Before School
At Primary School
For a detailed Signs and Symptoms Checklist, please see below.
Not every sign or symptom of the dyslexic profile presents itself in each dyslexic person, although there is usually evidence of a sufficient cluster of these to lead to a diagnosis. It should be noted that dyslexia tends to run in families, so there may be a history of it. Asking parents, however, may not be enough, as often a parent will not have recognised it when he/she was at school. Many only realise the condition once their children are diagnosed.
Before School
- History of slow speech development.
- Difficulty learning nursery rhymes.
- Finds phonological difficulty with the selection of the odd one out e.g. cat: pig : fat.
- Some dyslexic children enjoy being read to, but show no interest in letters or words.
- Others have no patience for sitting and listening.
- Difficulty with two or more instructions at one time (due to weak memory system) but well able to carry out tasks when presented in smaller units.
- Difficulty keeping simple rhythm.
- May not crawl but walks early.
- Persistent difficulty in dressing.
- Difficulty with shoe laces, buttons, clothes the right way around.
- Difficulty with catching, kicking or throwing a ball.
- Difficulty with hopping and skipping.
- Excessive tripping, bumping into things and falling over things.
- Obvious good and bad days for no apparent reason.
At Primary School
- Personal organisation poor.
- Takes a long time to complete written work.
- Poor spelling.
- Getting thoughts down on paper a struggle.
- Literacy based learning is generally hard work, even if the child is very intelligent.
- Poor time keeping and awareness.
- Copying off the board slow.
- Difficulty in remembering what day of the week it is, birth date, seasons of the year, month of the year.
- Difficulty in learning to tell the time.
- Difficulty remembering anything in sequential order, e.g. days of the week, the alphabet, tables, foreign languages.
- Poor reading progress.
- Inability to blend letters together.
- Difficulty in establishing syllable division, beginnings and endings of words, synthesis and analysis of words.
- Hesitant and laboured reading, especially when reading aloud, often misses out words or adds extra words or fails to recognise familiar words. Or can be very speedy in reading but doesn't read all the words- reads some and then pieces the story together.
- Making anagrams of words, e.g. tired for tried, breaded for bearded.
- Undetermined hand preference.
- Confusion between left and right.
- Poor handwriting with many reversals and badly formed letters.
- Difficulty in picking out the most important points from a passage.
- Poor standard of written work in comparison with oral ability.
- Losing the point of the story being written or read.
- Messy work with many crossings out and words tried several times e.g. wippe, wype, wiep, wipe.
- Persistent confusion with letters which look similar, particularly b/d, p/q, n/u, m/w.
- Confusion with number order, e.g. plus and minus.
- A word spelt several different ways in one piece of writing.
- Badly set out written work, inability to stay close to the margin.
- Seems to dream, does not seem to listen.
- Concentration on literacy tasks poor, but can be good for other tasks.
- Easily distracted.
- Limited understanding of non-verbal communication.
- Fine motor skills may be poor leading to weakness in the speed, control and accuracy of the pencil.
- May become the class clown, disruptive or withdrawn (these are cries for help).
- Employs work avoidance tactics (sharpening pencils, looking for books etc.)
- Lacks confidence in literacy tasks..
- Rests head on desk or right over to one side when colouring or writing.
- Performs unevenly day to day.
- Excessive tiredness due to the amount of concentration and effort required.
- Headaches are common
- Eyes sore, itchy or watery
For a detailed Signs and Symptoms Checklist, please see below.