The problems encountered by a dyslexic.

In a previous posting I wrote on development of the fetus during pregnancy. One of the possible problems in the development of the brain of the unborn child is dyslexia.

On Thursday, 19th March 2009, a letter in the Star newspaper from a 17 year old dyslexia sufferer was in the views page. He told about his problem with spelling; how he ‘still fail to spell words like 'scissors' and 'friends' correctly’. It also affects his ability to solve basic Math equations.

He wrote, “Imagine the horror of trying to grasp a Math formula that is full of alphabets.” He told of his confusion regarding letters. According to him, he was ‘often confused with M and N, B and D, P and Q, O and Q.’

He related his reading difficulty with “I still remember being extremely fatigued after reading a simple text when I was in primary school because I spent too much energy on trying to read till I forgot the contents of the text itself.”
For him, life was made more difficult with being labeled ‘stupid’, ‘slow’ or ‘lazy'. As anyone can see, ‘learning was a living nightmare.’

Life was difficult even when ‘Calling up the delivery service.It has been quite a challenge when the person at the other end asks you to spell out certain details like your address and house number. I tend to jumble up the numbers.’

Remembering things was difficult. Even filling a simple form where names have to be written is tough as he ‘even misspelled my name!’. He found remembering car number plates tough.

Advancement in technology has helped dyslexics. According to him, the spell-check and built-in dictionary in the computer helped. He found the time from a digital clock easier to read when compared with the analog clock. And phones with the dictionary function certainly helped him to send messages to his friends and relatives.

As dyslexia and vision or hearing problems can go undetected during the early schooling years, it is important for us to be vigilant and have our children examined by doctors should our children find difficulty in language learning. Parents could teach their children to read as early as possible so that such learning difficulties can be detected and treated early.