Children’s Academy for Neurodevelopment & Learning

What is Dyslexia?

By Toni Hager NDS

            The word dyslexia is derived from the Greek “dys” (meaning poor or inadequate) and “lexis” (words or language).  Dyslexia is a learning disability characterized by problems in expressive or receptive, oral or written language.  Problems may emerge in reading, spelling, writing, speaking, or listening.  

• Dyslexia is not a disease. 

• Dyslexia is not a behavioral, psychological, motivational, or social problem.   

• Dyslexia is not the result of low intelligence.  

• Intelligence is not the problem.  

• Dyslexia is not a vision problem.  

            An unexpected gap exists between learning aptitude and achievement in school.  A person who is dyslexic has problems translating language to thought (as in listening or reading) or thought to language (as in writing or speaking).  People with dyslexia are unique, each have individual strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes. 

Symptoms of dyslexia

Few dyslexics exhibit all the signs of the disorder.  Some common signs are:

•  Lack of awareness of sounds in words, sound order, rhymes, or sequence of syllables

• Difficulty decoding words—single word identification

• Difficulty encoding words—spelling

• Poor sequencing of numbers, of letters in words, when read or written, e.g. b-d, sing-sign, left-felt, soiled-solid, 12-21

• Problems with reading comprehension

• Difficulty expressing thoughts in written form

• Delayed spoken language

• Imprecise or incomplete interpretation of language that is heard

• Difficulty in expressing thoughts orally

• Confusion about directions in space or time (right and left, up and down, early and late, yesterday and tomorrow, months and days)

• Confusion about right or left handedness

• Similar problems among relatives

• Difficulty with handwriting

• Difficulty in mathematics—often related to sequencing of steps or directionality or the language of mathematics

Who Has Dyslexia?

           The National Institutes of Health estimate that approximately 15% of the U.S. population is affected by learning disabilities.  Of students with learning disabilities who receive special education services, 80-85% have their basic deficits in language and reading.   Today, 2.4 million (1 out of every 7) U.S. school children share this diagnosis.

 Many children are never properly diagnosed or treated, or “fall through the cracks” because they don’t qualify for services.  Of these “fall through the crack kids” 40% of males will be arrested by age 16; 52% will turn to drugs and/or alcohol; 30% will never finish school; 75% of adults will have problems with relationships or jobs; and according to a new study up to 70% of prisoners have learning problems.

What can be done, are there solutions?

             The root cause of dyslexia is neurological dysorganization.  The characteristics that describe a person as dyslexic are symptoms of neurological dysorganization; and, can be eliminated if treated.  Most schools and professionals identify and categorize the symptoms; but don’t treat the symptoms.  They don’t believe there is a cure.

              Dyslexia is often a storage and retrieval issue in the brain.  When the brain stores information in the subdominant hemisphere of the brain and then has to retrieve the info through a dominant hemisphere function such as speech or manual function the information has to travel to the corpus callosum.  In it’s journey across the corpus callosum the information turns into a mirror image.  The dominant hemisphere then has to transpose this information back into the correct form.  In dyslexia this final transposing doesn’t happen efficiently thereby producing reversals.  

Let’s examine the neurological dysorganization 
of this thing called dyslexia.

            One piece of the puzzle has to do with short-term memory or sequential processing. What does the brain do with information once it gets there.  Learning is dependent upon the brain’s ability to hold individual pieces of information together to understand, categorize, or interpret to make some type of order.  To successfully learn a individual needs to be able to hold 7 pieces of information together.  The person with weak processing abilities may have problems

• developing receptive and expressive language,

• lack awareness of sounds of words or sequence of syllables,

• poor sequencing of numbers, or letters in words,

• difficulty expressing themselves orally

•  lack of awareness of what’s going on around them

• impaired ability to learn from books,

• difficulty with handwriting

Another piece of the puzzle is cortical hemisphere dominance or long-term memory.  Cortical hemisphere dominance refers to the establishment of a controlling hemisphere of the brain, separation of, or specialization of neurological function.  This separation of function is possible when dominance has been achieved.  Dominance is established when the individual has a dominant hand, eye, ear and foot all on the same side.  The right-handed person need also be right eyed, eared, and footed.  The left-handed person need be left eyed, eared, and footed.  Lets look at an example.

      Think of your brain as filing cabinets.  The right-handed person’s files are kept on the left side of the brain; and, everything seen or heard is stored in those files.  When the brain’s secretary retrieves information she can find it quickly thus the child is considered a normal or gifted learner. 

            If for some reason such as near or far-sightedness, an astigmatism, a lazy eye, or a history of ear infections or fluid against the eardrum the individual uses the other eye or ear that information is stored in the right side files (opposite side).  When the brain’s secretary goes to retrieve that information she will go to the left files since that’s where it should be, she searches and searches; but, it can’t be found—it’s misfiled.   This causes her to find the information really slowly, not at all or reversed.  This child is a struggling learner with a variety of labels like dyslexic.

Learning problems due to dominance issues are: 

• Behavioral (tantrum, cries, out of control),

• can’t find answer,

• knew something yesterday but not today,

• different answers to the same math problem, or understand the language of mathematics

• confusion about directions in space or time

• difficulty with spelling

• difficulty in discussion making

• difficulty with mental math

• difficulty with reading comprehension

• difficulty in verbal or written expression

• difficulty with word problems

• and  letter or number reversals

Can dyslexia be treated?

            Yes.   Neurological dysorganization can be eliminated, in most cases, including learning problems, dyslexia, ADD/HD, low or high pain tolerance, bed wetting, balance & coordination issues, perceptual delays, speech difficulties, behavior problems to mention just a few. 

CAN LEARN provides evaluations in neurodevelopment and education; and, design’s individualized in-home therapeutic programs which address the brain’s inefficiencies.  First, you provide a detailed developmental, medical, and educational client history form that describes the level of function of the central nervous system.  After reviewing the history the child’s receptive areas of Tactility, Auditory, and Visual channels (including processing skills) as well as the expressive areas of Language, Manual, and mobility competence will be assessed.  Academic performance is evaluated using standardized achievement tests. 

            Second, an individualized accelerated and targeted eclectic intervention program is designed.  CAN LEARN empowers you, the parent, with the knowledge, techniques, and expertise that enable you to assume primary responsibility for your child’s maximum growth and development.  You are trained how to implement the program activities; and, taught a more efficient method of teaching academics.  Lastly, CAN LEARN provides on-going support and encouragement.