Parents may wonder why their child, who otherwise appears normal and may even be intelligent, is having difficulty in school. They can’t understand why he has a hard time recognizing words in the storybook that he used to know so well when he was a little boy. Now, his teachers are recommending that a health professional be called in to possibly diagnose dyslexia, and this causes a lot of concern and confusion for parents.
Before entering school, it is often misunderstood how to recognize dyslexia in a child. The child may show normal cognition and all the developmental skills that infants, toddlers, and preschoolers are supposed to show at certain ages. Your pediatrician can attest that the child is perfectly normal and healthy. But once kindergarten or elementary school starts, problems begin to arise. Teachers can see that the child is having difficulty recognizing letters, words, and numbers. You may notice that he is also having difficulty in other areas, such as math, writing, speech, and memory, as well as sports and music. So they suspect that the child may have dyslexia. In the past, dyslexia was thought to be difficult to detect and assess. In fact, it is not difficult to assess dyslexia if you have the right tools.
There are many warning signs of dyslexia, and when you look at them and then assess the child, dyslexia is easy to assess. Reading is just one symptom of this learning disability disorder. Other symptoms can include uncoordinated movements, poor memory, speech and hearing problems, math difficulties, and even hyperactivity.
To diagnose dyslexia, you can make the process simple or easy. It really doesn’t have to be complicated. There are many screening tools to help detect dyslexia. In the state of Texas (the first state to test for dyslexia), students are tested for dyslexia in kindergarten, first, and second grade.
Many of the tests to diagnose dyslexia use a game or puzzle approach that appeals to children. Of course, there is no need to train or revise for tests. The important thing is to let your child get a good night’s sleep before the day of testing and have a good breakfast to start the day and help put them in a positive mood. While testing is taking place, parents should not be present.
Once the tests are done, the teacher evaluates the results by comparing the child’s actual scores to their potential and normal or expected levels for their age. The evaluation is very complete, especially in the reading aspect. Each feature of the reading process is analyzed to determine exactly where the child’s difficulty lies.
The diagnostic evaluation will reveal whether or not the child has dyslexia. Very importantly, if dyslexia is established, the tests will also give useful insights into how the learning disorder can be managed. On the one hand, the tests will reveal how the child absorbs and processes information and what he does with it. They also bring to light how he learns best, whether through auditory, visual, or kinesthetic means. This information can be used to customize a learning approach that is most effective for you.
In short, tests to diagnose dyslexia are done by teachers or tutors, and the process is very manageable. Assessments include phonological processing assessments as well as quick tests of automatic naming and working memory. These are helpful not only in diagnosing dyslexia, but also in planning an appropriate learning program for the dyslexic child. To find a learning difficulty, it is important to look at how to diagnose dyslexia.
