Dyslexia: symptoms, causes and tips

The child has started to learn many things since he was in the development of a toddler. However, parents also need to pay attention when they experience conditions such as difficulty spelling to reading. Not because they are lazy, there is a possibility that the child may experience dyslexia or a reading disorder. The following is a complete explanation of the symptoms, causes, to how to treat dyslexia in children.

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What is dyslexia?

Dyslexia or dyslexia is a type of learning disorder that makes it difficult for children to read, write, spell, or speak clearly.

The International Dyslexia Association states that dyslexia is a neurological disease in children. This is marked when he has difficulty recognizing letters, words, and poor spelling skills.

As a result, this learning disorder can cause problems in understanding vocabulary, sentences, reading, and understanding reading material.

For example, when reading, the sense of sight sends signals from the images or letters they see and hear to the central nervous system, namely the brain.

Then, the brain will connect the letters or images in the correct order to form a word, sentence, or paragraph that can be read.

However, children with dyslexia have difficulty matching the letters and pictures. Therefore, this will make it difficult for him to learn the next thing.

Although it causes learning disorders, this condition in fact does not affect or relate to the level of intelligence of the child.

How common is dyslexia?

Dyslexia occurs mostly in children or in adolescents to adults who have just been detected.

Quoted from the Mayo Clinic, the signs also differ according to age and severity experienced.

These learning disabilities are lifelong and cannot be cured. Even so, dyslexia can be managed.

For this reason, it is never too late for people with learning problems on this one to improve children's language development.

Signs and symptoms of dyslexia

This reading and writing disorder will usually be difficult to recognize if the child has not started school.

The reason is, this disorder will really be seen during the child's development when he begins to learn to read.

However, there are actually some early clues that parents can be aware of.

The following are various signs and symptoms of dyslexia based on the stages of age:

Characteristics of dyslexia in preschool age

Preschoolers who are dyslexic usually experience symptoms, such as:

• The child is late talking.
• Slow at learning new words.
• Difficulty forming words correctly, for example back and forth or difficulty understanding words that are similar.
• Difficulty remembering letters, numbers, colors.

Symptoms of dyslexia at school age

At school age, the signs are usually more obvious, such as:

• The ability to read is much lower than other children his age.
• Difficulty processing and understanding what he heard.
• It is difficult to find the right words or sentences to answer a question.
• Difficulty remembering the sequence of events.
• Cannot pronounce unfamiliar words.
• It takes a very long time to complete a reading or writing assignment.
• Often avoid reading activities.

Symptoms of dyslexia in adolescence and adulthood

Dyslexia is also often not detected until the child is a teenager and even an adult. Usually the symptoms are similar to those that appear in children.

The various characteristics of dyslexia in adolescence and adulthood, namely:

• Difficulty reading aloud.
• Slow reading and writing skills.
• Has spelling problems.
• Always avoid activities related to reading.
• Often times it is wrong to pronounce names or words.
• Difficulty understanding idioms, for example light-handed, stubborn, and so on.
• It takes a long time to complete a reading or writing assignment.
• Difficulty memorizing and summarizing a story.
• Difficulty learning a foreign language.

In addition, in general, children who experience dyslexia as a teenager will usually see:

• Depression while studying.
• Withdrawing from the environment.
• Losing interest in school and studying.

These things often make children with learning disorders labeled as lazy.

In fact, he has a reading and writing disorder that his parents and teachers may not know. As a result, children who have difficulty in learning often give up.

For this reason, parents need to be sensitive to the various signs and symptoms of dyslexia both during childhood and in the adolescent development phase.

If your child experiences any of the signs that have been mentioned, do not hesitate to take him to a doctor, especially a neurologist and psychologist for immediate treatment.

Causes of dyslexia in children

What parents need to know is that dyslexia is not a disease. This is a condition of the child from birth and often runs in families.

Quoted from Kids Health, studies have shown that dyslexia or difficulty reading occurs because there are differences in the way the brain processes information.

Broadly speaking, the causes of dyslexia in children are divided into two, namely:

1. Genetic

The most common cause of dyslexia is a defect in the DCD2 gene and is usually passed down from family members.

This condition begins when the cerebrum or part of the brain that regulates thinking, reading, and language activities does not function properly.

2. Other conditions

Apart from heredity, the cause of dyslexia is a disorder experienced by the child after birth such as brain injury or other trauma.

Here are some other factors that can cause this condition, such as:

• Babies are born prematurely or are underweight.
• Nicotine exposure, drugs, alcohol, or infections during pregnancy.
• Abnormalities in brain structures that play a role in word processing and thinking activities.

What are the types of dyslexia?

These learning disabilities can be classified into several types, namely:

• Phonological dyslexia (hearing): Difficulty spelling a word into letters and writing down the words that are heard.
• Surface dyslexia : Not able to recognize words so it is difficult to remember and learn.
• Rapid naming deficit: Not able to say numbers or letters seen.
• Double deficit dyslexia: Unable to separate sound to say letters and numbers.
• Visual dyslexia : A condition characterized by difficulty in interpreting the word being seen.

You need to pay attention to these types of learning disorders and which ones your little one has so you can explain them to your doctor.

What effects might the child have?

Dyslexia often goes unnoticed by parents. In fact, there are children who do not realize they have this disease until adulthood.

Usually children with dyslexia experience various conditions such as:

1. Problematic learning process

Reading and writing are basic skills that a person must master. Not only for learning, but also important for adult life later.

Children also may not go to class because they have missed a lot of lessons. As an adult, the work that can be done is limited.

2. Social problems

Without treatment, this condition can make a child become inferior with friends so that it interferes with the child's social emotional development.

In addition, children will tend to withdraw from the environment, have problems with behavior, are anxious, and are more aggressive.

3. Mental health becomes worse

Children with this condition are at a higher risk of developing ADHD. If a child has ADHD, which makes attention and hyperactive behavior difficult to control, dyslexia can be even more difficult to treat.

When is the time to see a doctor?

Learning to recognize letters, reading, spelling, writing, and stringing words is usually learned by preschoolers.

His abilities will be further honed after entering elementary school.

If you see signs that your child is not doing well in school, you should start to be vigilant.

In general, children with this condition usually cannot understand the basics of lessons that should be understood by children their age.

For that, immediately consult a doctor or psychologist if you feel worried about the development of your little one.

How is dyslexia in children diagnosed?

To get a proper diagnosis of dyslexia in children, you have to go to school and ask about the child's learning progress.

When consulting a doctor, usually there are several tests that your child should do, such as:

• Speech ability tests such as questions and answers or retelling of an incident.
• A letter, word, or number recognition test.
• Tests for understanding the meaning of words and reading content.
• Word spelling and word writing tests.
• Psychological tests and brain health.

During the assessment process, the examiner must rule out other conditions or causes that make the child experience learning difficulties.

These other conditions include vision problems, hearing problems, or unclear instructions when the test is being performed.

In addition, the doctor will also review the history of the disease in the family.

What are the treatment options for dyslexia?

This condition may be difficult to diagnose and treat completely.

Therefore, for treatment to be successful and to progress, support from both schools and parents is needed.

The following are various treatments and therapies that are usually used to treat dyslexia in children, such as:

1. Educational stimulation

Children who have dyslexia will usually be taught with special approaches and techniques.

In school, teachers can use techniques involving hearing, sight, and touch to improve their reading skills.

In this way, children will be helped to use several senses at the same time to learn, such as listening to recorded material while writing.

In addition, children will also be taught to practice mouth movements when making sounds and saying certain words.

Not only that, children will also learn with help flash cards to improve cognitive development of children.

These techniques will usually focus on assisting the child in:

• Learn to recognize sounds in spoken words.
• Understand that letters represent sound and are the building blocks of words.
• Understand what he is reading.
• Read aloud to create accuracy, speed, and fluency.
• Combine letters to create more complex words and sentences.

Children with this learning disorder will usually be given an extension of the exam time so that they can complete it completely.

This can also be done to see their learning abilities so far.

2. Using technology assistance

Dyslexia therapy can be used with the help of technology to make learning and work easier for adolescents as well as adults.

The reason is, using this computer usually tends to be easier when compared to books.

A word processing program, for example, can be used to help check spelling automatically so as to minimize errors in writing.

Apart from that, the program text to speech allows the computer to read text as it appears on the screen. The goal is to train the senses of sight and hearing.

You can also suggest children to use digital recorders in lectures.

Then, you can listen to the recording again at home while reading the notes that have been written.

3. Supporting children to continue learning to read

Teaching children to read is not only a role for the teacher, but also for you as a parent.

So, it would be better if you also support children to continue to practice reading, for example:

• Make time to read books together.
• Choose reading books that children like.
• Train children to read books out loud, not in their hearts.
• Play guessing the word after reading a book.
• Provide a sense of comfort and fun for children when reading books together so they don't get bored.

The more often children practice reading, the more their abilities will also improve.

4. Show concern and affection

To keep your child excited for learning, you must show care and affection. The method is easy, namely by praising or celebrating each progress in learning.

Then, help the child to understand the condition. That way, children will not feel worse or less fortunate than their peers.

This is important in order to build children's self-confidence to socialize with other people so that emotional disturbances do not occur in children.

Not only that, but still give children the freedom to do various things they like, such as painting, playing football, or playing music.