Does Your Child Suffer from Dyslexia?

Dyslexia is a condition that can interfere with your child's ability to learn. Dyslexia is a genetic neurological disorder. It has been referred to as a malfunction in brain circuitry. Children that suffer from dyslexia may have difficulty learning and since the condition concerns the processing of language there may be particular difficulty in the areas of reading, writing and spelling.

I had never heard of dyslexia until my daughter's problems with reading and writing became apparent. I began to get concerned when I watched the manner in which my daughter was writing. Instead of writing from left to right she would write from right to left. Some of her words would even be written backwards; for instance, instead of writing the word cat, she would write tac. She would even turn her paper upside down to write.

At first my husband and I thought that her odd writing habits were the result of her being ambidextrous; she could use both hands with equal dexterity. Although she could use both hands with seemingly equal ability she seemed to favor the left hand. I had heard somewhere that left handed children start out writing backward so I thought perhaps it was normal and that she would grow out of it.

As time went on she did eventually begin to write correctly but she had increasing difficulty with reading and spelling. My daughter's teacher pointed out that her reading comprehension skills were quite poor. Even simple words seemed difficult for her to spell. We finally began to realize that there might be an underlying cause for our child's difficulty in learning.

Symptoms of dyslexia can vary and may be accompanied by other learning disorders although that is not always the case. Symptoms may include delayed or garbled speech, difficulty learning to read or write, lack of organizational skills and/or confusion with directions. Children that suffer from dyslexia often have difficulty learning to tie their shoes or tell time. They may use both hands when writing, drawing or coloring and they may frequently change hands.