One of the most common learning disorders that affects school-age children is Dyslexia. That is why International Dyslexia Day is celebrated on October 8, to raise awareness about this disorder that affects 10% of the world’s population, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The date has been officially recognized by the European Dyslexia Association, proposed by several associations of families with dyslexia.
According to estimated figures, dyslexic children (aged between 7 and 9 years) represent between 3 and 6 percent of the child population, with this condition occurring more in boys than in girls.
The curricular content of the current educational system is based on learning, through reading, writing and memorization, generating marked conditions of inequality in children with dyslexia, due to their difficulty in understanding and learning.
What is dyslexia?
Dyslexia is a specific learning disorder of neurobiological and hereditary origin that affects various areas of functioning, such as reading and writing performance, affecting the academic performance of school-age children and adolescents, as well as work performance in adults.
The main characteristic features of dyslexia are the following:
Difficulties in reading and writing, fluently and accurately.
Comprehension difficulties.
Limited lexicon.
Deficiencies in short-term memory.
Visual tracking difficulties.
Difficulties in space-time notions: confusion between right and left, recognizing the days of the week, months, hours.
Change in the order of the letters.
Difficulties in psychomotor coordination (dyspraxia).
Difficulties with mathematics (dyscalculia).
Poor spelling.
There are three types of dyslexia:
Phonological dyslexia: referring to the reading of words that the person does not know and changes.
Surface dyslexia: commonly occurs in children, related to changing words they do not know and having difficulty reading.
Mixed or deep dyslexia: it is related to greater difficulties in perceiving and reading words. It is a type of advanced dyslexia through which the individual cannot read or write easily, changing simple words for different ones.
This neurodevelopmental disorder generates the following consequences, difficulties and limitations:
School dropout.
Depressive episodes.
Stress and anxiety.
Bullying.
Low self-esteem.
Eating disorders.
How can we treat this learning disorder?
In the approach, diagnosis and treatment of dyslexia, it is necessary to determine the specific difficulties in each patient with the intervention of a multidisciplinary team, made up of neuropsychologists, ophthalmologists, otorhinolaryngologists, neurologists, speech therapists, pediatricians and behavioral and developmental specialists.
It is very important to have family support to strengthen communication, confidence and improve reading and writing skills, through the application of specific educational techniques, as well as the following recommendations for parents and representatives of children and adolescents with dyslexia:
Promote their talents and strengths, with expressions of love, support and containment.
Explain to people who suffer from this disorder that dyslexia is not a personal failure, nor a lack of intelligence, but a learning disorder.
Seek clean, relaxed and organized spaces for school activities.
Seek a healthy and balanced diet.
Establish frequent contact with teachers, in order to support school activities and homework.
Seek specialized help or support groups that address similar learning difficulties.
