dyslexia test
7-16 dyslexia test for adults
Front Page and Contents
dyslexia test
7-16
dyslexia test
for adults
What causes
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Dyslexia has not been generally recognized
as a learning difficulty until the last decade or two.
John Bradford reviews the latest research
on its causes, and suggests further reading.
| The first thing that needs to
be said is that dyslexia is not brought about by poor parenting. On
the contrary, it is the concerned parents of dyslexic children who have taken
the initiatives that have brought dyslexia to the forefront of the learning
difficulties arena. Individual parents have persisted in pointing out to
their children's schools that something must be wrong when a child of apparently
normal intelligence is failing to learn to read and write.
What does cause dyslexia, then? To be quite honest, nobody quite knows at the moment. There has been a real increase in the amount of research taking place, and a number of possibilities are beginning to emerge, but the waters are still fairly murky. The overall picture is that dyslexia can be caused in two ways:
1. by hearing problems
at an early age; and Hearing problems at an early age. If a child suffers frequent colds and throat infections in the first five years, the ears can be blocked from time to time so that hearing is impaired. The parents can easily be unaware of this until a doctor actually looks into the child's ear. This condition is sometimes known as 'glue ear' or 'conductive hearing loss'. If the difficulty is not noticed at an early stage, then the developing brain does not make the links between the sounds it hears. This early learning of sounds and words is fundamental to the child's developing ability to handle language and text. It causes lifelong difficulties - dyslexia - if corrective action is not taken at a very early stage. The most common treatment is the insertion of a tiny tube or grommet into the child's ear. This allows the fluid to drain off so that the child's hearing is restored. Another treatment is the removal of the tonsils, which are sometimes the cause of the repeated infections. Inherited factors. It is clear from all the assessments that we carry out at Direct Learning is that dyslexia is very frequently found in families, and is often accompanied by left-handedness somewhere in the family. This does not mean to say that a dyslexic parent will automatically have a dyslexic child, or that a left-handed child will necessarily be dyslexic. But where dyslexia does occur, of the children and adults we diagnose, more than 80% have a history of learning difficulties in their family, and more than 60% have a family member who is left-handed. With the technical advances that have come about in brain-scanning in recent years, a lot of work has been carried out examining the brains of dyslexic people. Bunches of cells beneath the surface of the brain have been detected which lie on the surface in the brain of a non-dyslexic person. These groups of cells ought to have moved to the brain's surface at the time when the brain was developing in the fetus, but failed to make the journey. They are known as 'ectopic' cells (like an ectopic pregnancy, where the egg fails to reach the womb and is fertilized in the Fallopian tube). These ectopic clusters of cells are mainly found in the left and the front of the brain - the areas which are important for reading and writing. Another area of the brain - the magno-cellular system, which deals with our ability to see moving images - is smaller in the brains of dyslexic people. This makes reading harder, where the brain has to quickly interpret the different letters and words which the eyes see as they scan words and sentences. There are more dyslexic boys than girls, and investigations are being carried out to see whether a child's mental development is altered by the hormone testosterone. It is thought that a child's immune system could be affected by an excess of testosterone, which could lead to problems such as allergies, asthma and dyslexia. With the use of EEG, where electrodes are fitted to a person's head, it has been possible to see increased brain activity on the right side of the brain when a child is beginning to learn to read. Increased activity is noticeable on the left side in an advanced reader. However, the brains of dyslexic children show an unusual variation in left- and right-side activity. A combination of both Sometimes a child has experienced early hearing problems and has also inherited genes which dispose him or her towards difficulties dealing with the printed word. These children are often found to be quite severely dyslexic, and need a lot of support through their school and college years. Different types of dyslexia It is thought that there is a variety of types of Dyslexia. At Direct Learning we find that there is no one pattern which all dyslexic children and adults fit. Some dyslexic children have good short-term memory, whilst others are really weak in this area. Some have good skills in math, whilst others really struggle. Some have few problems with left and right, whilst others get completely confused. Learning strategies can make a huge difference Learning strategies to overcome the difficulties associated with dyslexia can make a huge difference to the performance of a dyslexic child or adult. In particular, a 'multi-sensory' method can really help: this involves teaching people to learn spellings, for example, not only by hearing and saying the sounds of the letters, but also by using their visual and tactile (touch) memories by writing the letters in the air, on the carpet, with clay or in very large (joined) handwriting on big sheets of paper. This gives their brain a visual and tactile memory of the word as well as the memory of hearing the sounds of the letters. Joining the letters together - in joined handwriting - helps the brain to remember the order of the letters in a word. Compensating strengths. There are compensating strengths for a dyslexic person. Dyslexics benefit greatly in two important areas: creativity and physical co-ordination. Each week at Direct Learning we see examples of creative and imaginative drawings from children being assessed, and we read about dyslexic children's skills and pleasure in sports, games and other activities which require the physical co-ordination that many non-dyslexic children find hard.
Further reading about the
causes of dyslexia:
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Other Direct Learning website
pages: