Key question

• Dyslexia

  A hidden disability, an unexpected reading difficulty compared to intelligence, level of education and professional status. Affects 10% of the population.

  Symptoms: difficulty in handwriting, spelling, reading, can't understand sound of words.
• Famous people with dyslexia

  Albert Einstein

  Pablo Picasso

  Steven Spiensberg
• Treatments for dyslexia

  Classroom-based intervention approach:

  Alters teaching and learning environment to better suit children with memory problems, easy to implement, used with all children

  Direct intervention:

  Help children with literacy issues to improve working memory, aims to practice and develop it through a variety of tasks to increase processing speed and strategies for remembering
• Examples of treatments for dyslexia

  -Clearly stating lesson aims

  -Checklists

  -Simplified instructions

  -Highlight info to code it

  -Use audio/visual material

  -Avoid reading aloud (child)
• Are treatments effective?

  The types of interventions are helpful, especially early on for support but long-term gains and relation to daily tasks are questionable. Dyslexia can cause low self-esteem and confidence, social and emotional difficulties as well. These are not treated in interventions but should be addressed. It is difficult to find strategies which work for everyone and mistakes occur when people are mis-diagnosed or not at all.
• Dyslexia and the PL

  Relates to issues linking letters to sounds (phonics). A shorter PL span than normal (2 seconds of speech) would explain why children with dyslexia muddle up similar letter sounds. Since then English children have been taught to read slower because letter-sound links are inconsistent. Children with dyslexia need specific thinking in phonics.
• Dyslexia and the VSS

  Dyslexics have been observed to have significantly shorter VSS. The VSS relates to the way we visualise things we see and hear to do with the world around us. It involves our spatial awareness and how we hold the information we receive. To help children with dyslexia, semantic, sequential information is needed, such as simplifying complex ideas down into lists or visual aids.
• Dyslexia and the CE

  Some evidence suggests that the CE may have impairments involved with dyslexia. Problems from day-to-day experiences such as getting distracted. It is believed that if people have poor CE function also have poor abilities in memory and listening. You can improve reading by teaching phonetic awareness. Other evidence suggests that intervention is beneficial and can improve brain activity in areas associated with fluent reading.