Typical features of dyslexia
Dyslexia usually includes difficulty with:
- hearing and being able to manipulate the separate sounds in words (phonological awareness)
- remembering, for a short time, a list of words, numbers or instructions (verbal memory)
- being able to quickly process familiar letters, words, digits or numbers (verbal processing speed)
Phonological awareness
Phonological awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate the separate sounds within words (phonemes) and is a key foundation skill for early reading and spelling development. An example of phonological awareness is understanding that if the ‘p’ in ‘pat’ is changed to an ‘s’ the word becomes ‘sat’.
When reading, if a child has problems with phonological awareness they might have difficulty recognising that sounds can be represented by letters or groups of letters within written words (this is often called phonics at school).
Verbal memory awareness
Verbal memory is the ability to remember an ordered sequence of words or numbers for a short period of time. For example it is used to remember a list of words or numbers or to remember a list of instructions.
Verbal processing speed
Verbal processing speed is the time taken to process familiar information, such as words, letters and digits or numbers.
Although difficulty in these areas can be detected at an early age they may go unnoticed until a child struggles to learn to read in the first years of school. If your child can see and hear clearly, doesn’t have an intellectual disability and displays some of the difficulties above they may have dyslexia.
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