Does my child have dyslexia?
Individuals with dyslexia usually have several of the characteristics listed below. Everyone can probably check one or two of these characteristics. That does not mean that everyone has dyslexia. A person with dyslexia usually has several characteristics, which persist over time and interfere with his or her learning. If your child is having difficulties learning to read and you have noted several of these characteristics in your child, he or she may need to be evaluated for dyslexia and/or a related disorder.
Difficulty with oral language
- Late in learning to talk
- Difficulty acquiring vocabulary or using age-appropriate grammar
- Difficulty following directions
- Confusion with before/after, right/left, etc.
- Difficulty learning the alphabet, nursery rhymes, or songs
- Difficulty understanding concepts and relationships
- Difficulty with word retrieval or naming problems
Difficulty with reading
- Difficulty learning to read
- Difficulty identifying or generating rhyming words or counting syllables in words (Phonological Awareness)
- Difficulty with hearing and manipulating sounds in words (Phonemic Awareness)
- Distinguishing different sounds in words (Auditory Discrimination)
- Difficulty in learning the sounds of letters
- Difficulty remembering names and/or the order of letters when reading
- Misreads or omits common little words
- "Stumbles" through longer words
- Poor reading comprehension during oral or silent reading
- Slow, laborious oral reading
Difficulty with written language
- Trouble putting ideas on paper
- Many spelling mistakes
- May do well on weekly spelling tests, but there are many spelling mistakes in daily work
- Difficulty in proofreading
Difficulty with organization
- Loses papers
- Poor sense of time
- Forgets homework
- Messy desk
- Overwhelmed by too much input
- Works slowly
- Things are "out of sight out of mind"
Other
- Difficulty naming colors, objects, and letters (rapid naming)
- Memory problems
- Needs to see or hear concepts many times in order to learn them
- Distracted by visual stimuli
- Downward trend in achievement test scores or school performance
- Work in school is inconsistent
- Teacher says, "If only she would try harder," or "He's lazy."
- Relatives may have similar problems