Warning Signs of Dyslexia

Dyslexia symptoms vary according to the severity of the disorder as well as the age of the individual.

Pre-school age children will show the following signs: Delay in learning to speak, learns new words slowly, has difficulty rhyming words as in nursery rhymes and they could be late in establishing a dominant hand. 

Early elementary age children will show these warning signs: Difficulty learning the alphabet, Difficulty associating sounds with the letters that represent them (sound-symbol correspondence), Difficulty identifying or generating rhyming words, or counting syllables in words, Difficulty segmenting words into individual sounds, or blending sounds to make words, Difficulty regarding word retrieval or naming problems, Difficulty learning to decode words, Confusion understanding concepts of before/after, right/left, over/under, and so on, 

 Difficulty distinguishing between similar sounds in words; mixing up sounds in multisyllable words (auditory discrimination) ( example, "aminal" = animal, "bisghetti" = spaghetti). 

Older elementary age children will display these warning signs: Slow or inaccurate reading, Very poor spelling, Difficulty associating individual words with their correct meanings, Difficulty keeping time and concept of time, Difficulty developing organization skills, Due to fear of speaking incorrectly, some children become withdrawn and shy or become bullies out of their inability to understand the social cues in their environment, Difficulty comprehending rapid instructions, following more than one command at a time or remembering the sequence of things, Reversals of letters (b for d) and a reversal of words (saw for was) are typical among children who have dyslexia.

Reversals are also common for children age 6 and younger who don't have dyslexia. But with dyslexia, the reversals persist. Children with dyslexia may fail to see (and fail to hear) similarities and differences in letters and words. They may also not recognize the spacing that organizes letters into separate word, and may be unable to sound out the pronunciation of an unfamiliar word. Specialized therapy for individuals with learning differences (dyslexia and dysgraphia) is provided by Thirst For Learning in Edgewood, WA.