What are the symptoms of dyslexia?
From childhood, persistent difficulties in the acquisition of literacy skills (reading, spelling and writing) can be noted. Lower than expected age-related levels of literacy attainment (e.g. in reading fluency, reading accuracy, reading comprehension, spelling accuracy and writing fluency and accuracy) that persist longer than one year, despite intervention, might therefore be viewed as key specific indicators of a developmental literacy difficulty, or dyslexia. Addressing literacy difficulties involves a multifaceted approach with additional support in reading, writing and comprehension.
Young children can show early signs of difficulty in acquiring alphabetic knowledge and phonological awareness (linking letters and letter combinations to sounds). They have particular difficulty in decoding new and unfamiliar words, and in spelling. This can occur despite having good oral vocabulary and other verbal or non-verbal conceptual skills. They also show weak phonological or visual processing skills.
From around the age of seven, dyslexic learners demonstrate poorly specified phoneme representations that prevent the development of complete and secure mappings between phonemes (sounds) and their corresponding letter strings and inhibit the ‘typical’ move away from reliance on a decoding strategy. So, they rely on ‘phoneme by phoneme’ decoding for much longer than typical learners.
They also experience significant, persisting struggles with reading, writing and spelling, the basis of which lies in multiple interacting factors (e.g. phonological or visual processing deficits, but may also include features of other co-occurring developmental difficulties, such as motor, attentional, language or social and communication difficulties).