What is Dyslexia?

 

Dyslexia is a difference in the way the brain processes written and spoken words. It primarily affects reading and writing skills but it can also cause difficulty with organisation, maths and memory. Dyslexia is not a measure of intelligence. Dyslexic people often  have strong visual, creative and problem solving skills and are prominent among entrepreneurs, inventors, architects, engineers and in the arts and entertainment world. Many famous and successful people are dyslexic.

1 in 10 people are dyslexic and it can be passed through families. Despite being discovered more than 100 years ago however, many people still don't understand it.

Deficits in phonological abilities are at the core of dyslexia and are recognised as a defining feature. Phonological abilities are a set of skills which must work together if literacy is to be fully efficient and include:

  • phonological awareness (identifying sounds in spoken words)
  • verbal short-term memory (holding of material that can be expressed in spoken language, for example, numbers, words and sentences)
  • verbal working memory (the ability to hold and manipulate information in our minds)
  • phonological processing / verbal processing speed (how quickly information expressed in spoken language (letters, words, sentences) can be retrieved)

Visual processing speed is another type of processing skill that is useful in the assessment of dyslexia. Tasks require rapid work with information which is less easily labelled verbally. Tests usually involve working with unfamiliar shapes and symbols. 

Every person is different and there are different types of dyslexia covering a spectrum of difficulties including: visual, phonological, auditory, processing speed and working memory.

For more information about dyslexia and useful resources please visit the following websites: