What is Dyslexia?

If you, or your child, have difficulty with several of the following, an assessment may be helpful:

Are you able to recognise common words without difficulty?
Are you able to ‘sound out’ unfamiliar words?
Can you easily lose your place as you read along a line of print?
Do you ever find that the print can appear to ‘move’ as you read?
Are you able to read text, but unable to understand it?
Can you remember how to spell new words you encounter?
Do you have difficulty recalling the spelling of common words?
Do you need to concentrate much more on spelling than others?
Do you frequently lose track of your belongings?
Do you need to rely on other people to prompt you about appointments?
Are you able to multitask?
Do you have difficulty finding the words you need to express yourself?
Do you work very hard, but your results fail to reflect this?

Prevalence

The British Dyslexia Association estimates that dyslexia affects 10% of the population. This suggests that in a class of 30 students, you can expect that 3 will have dyslexia.

Definition of Dyslexia

Dyslexia is primarily a set of processing difficulties that affect the acquisition of reading and spelling.
In dyslexia, some or all aspects of literacy attainment are weak in relation to age, standard teaching and instruction, and level of other attainments.
Across languages and age groups, difficulties in reading and spelling fluency are a key marker of dyslexia.
The nature and developmental trajectory of dyslexia depends on multiple genetic and environmental influences.
Dyslexic difficulties exist on a continuum and can be experienced to various degrees of severity.
Dyslexia can affect the acquisition of other skills, such as mathematics, reading comprehension or learning another language.
The most commonly observed cognitive impairment in dyslexia is a difficulty in phonological processing (i.e. in phonological awareness, phonological processing speed or phonological memory). However, phonological difficulties do not fully explain the variability that is observed.
Working memory, orthographic skills and processing speed problems can contribute to the impact of dyslexia and therefore should be assessed.
Dyslexia frequently co-occurs with one or more other developmental difficulty, including developmental language disorder, dyscalculia, ADHD, and developmental coordination disorder.

Carroll, J., Holden, C., Kirby, P., Snowling, M. J., & Thompson, P.A. (2024). Contemporary concepts of dyslexia: A Delphi study.