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By admin, February 16, 2010 7:53 pm

Dyslexia is a heritable, neurological condition, which results from uncommon brain architecture. When reading or writing, dyslexics use different areas of the brain than non-dyslexics do.  As a result of this unique brain architecture, visual or phonemic information is disorganized, and reading, writing, spelling, and similar activities are extremely challenging.

Dyslexia can be categorized as visual or phonemic.  Dyslexia that is visual in nature causes written text to be seen as visual patterns that aren’t like what most readers see.  Dyslexia that is phonemic causes a person to be unable to distinguish between vowel sounds, or to be unable to assign a distinguishable consonant or vowel to a letter they see.

Dyslexia does not usually interfere with a person’s conversational skills, but is limited to difficulty with written information such as reading, writing, mathematics, and spelling. Most dyslexics are as smart as, or smarter than the average person.

Dyslexia is inconsistent in many ways. Bilingual people can be dyslexic in one language, but not another. Some dyslexics who can’t write are able to write extremely well if they tape their paper underneath a table and lie on their backs beneath it while writing.

Dyslexics can become successful readers over time. Visual dyslexics benefit from reading exercises and practice. Phonemic dyslexics can benefit from computer exercises that isolate letter sounds and replay them very slowly. This allows phonemic dyslexics to distinguish individual letter sounds used in speech and to associate them with individual letters.