Not getting it

There are children who, when it comes to reading or other tasks find it difficult and they just do not get it. It may not be their fault, but is the result of a learning disability. Many of these students are intelligent, but they still have difficulty.

Certainly kids caught in this situation may find themselves feeling like they are dumb and cannot learn. It would be easy for teachers and others to reinforce that feeling. We think that there may be several kids falling through the cracks through no fault of their own, or the fault of their teachers or parents. It is because they have dyslexia and it is not recognized.

Not all cases of dyslexia are the same; there is wide variation and degrees of this most common learning disability. According to the Mayo Clinic, "Dyslexia is impairment in your brain's ability to translate written images received from your eyes into meaningful language. Also called specific reading disability, dyslexia is the most common learning disability in children."

There have been many successful individuals who had dyslexia. Having this disability is not a sign of failure. They do need help, assistance and support. They need a great amount of proper tutoring and encouragement. Often it is difficult to recognize that a child has the disability.

One of the myths about dyslexia is that it does not exist. According to Bright Solutions of Dyslexia Inc., "Dyslexia is one of the most researched and documented conditions that will impact children. Over 30 years of independent, scientifically replicated, published research exists on dyslexia -- much of it done through the National Institutes of Health, funded by taxpayer's dollars."

It is common for dyslexia to occur with children with normal vision and normal intelligence. These children may have normal speech, but may have difficult interpreting spoken language and writing. According to the Mayo Clinic, dyslexia can be difficult to recognize before your child enters school, but some early clues may indicate a problem. Once a child enters school, the teacher may be the first to notice a problem. Some signs and symptoms that a young child may be at risk for dyslexia include, late talking, adding new words slowly and difficulty rhyming.

Once a child is in school, dyslexia symptoms may become more apparent, including: reading at a level well below the expected level for the age of the child: problems processing and understanding what he or she hears; difficulty comprehending rapid instructions: trouble following more than one command at a time; problems remembering the sequence of things; and difficulty seeing (and occasionally hearing) similarities and differences in letters and words. Other dyslexia symptoms listed on www.MayoClinic.com are an inability to sound out the pronunciation of an unfamiliar word: seeing letters or words in reverse (b for d or saw for was) -- although seeing letters or words in reverse is common for children younger than 8 who don't have dyslexia, children with dyslexia will continue to see reversals past that age: difficult spelling; and trouble learning a foreign language.