Childhood And Adult Dyslexia

Dyslexia is a learning disability that can affect children greatly during their school years. However, this condition doesn’t only have its effects on childhood but on adulthood too, especially in the workplace. The thing is, unlike in childhood where dyslexia has a great negative effect; in adulthood, the effect can vary from positive to negative.

A Look Back At Childhood Education



The educational methods used today are somewhat limited in regards to teaching students with reading, math and writing problems, the basic literacy skills that a child needs to know. Although most wouldn’t observe this problem, a lot of people with dyslexia are greatly affected by this limitation.



From the very start, the school system is observed to be stacked against dyslexics. This is because a person with dyslexia is "real world" thinker, which means the use of concepts and pictures is the main method to learn, instead of using mental sentences.

Thus, special training is required for them in able to master written language’s basics easily.

A Disability With A Twist

Even though dyslexics have lots of problems with learning, this is not an indicator that they are stupid, unlike what most people think. Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Churchill, Edison, Whoopi Goldberg, Greg Louganis and Walt Disney, were well thought-out to be "dummies" by their classmates, teachers, family and friends, during their first few years of school.

However, one way to look at the situation they were in is that they weren’t really suffering from a learning disability, but instead a teaching disability.

A lot of teachers just do not know the correct and appropriate methods for teaching and presenting information in the way that a dyslexic child can understand. As a consequence, these children are sometimes warehoused into "special ed" classes.

But sometimes, getting into a special ed class can cause the loss of self-esteem. This then becomes the trigger to the syndrome, which makes dyslexia even worse.

Sadly, this kind of attitude is sometimes carried over into adulthood.

Additional confusion, stress, coupled with heavy concentration, can only increase the attention and perceptual problems that the child is already having. The more struggle a dyslexic has, the more hard reading becomes.

Out Of The Cage: Welcome To Adulthood

As a dyslexic, once you get to finish school and start adulthood, life may seem easier for you. In fact, a lot of "learning disabled" people turn out to be highly successful once they are free from the boundaries of school.

With this condition, you may think that you simply have a knack for an activity. What you don’t realize is that this knack actually stems out from the same root as dyslexia -- your ability to mentally combine real world and imaginary images in an intuitive or creative way.

This talent can cause tremendous turmoil with your reading and writing. But when it is used for fields like the arts, sports, engineering, invention, salesmanship, and strategy, it can actually produce wonders!

This breakthrough from childhood to adulthood is really a notable event in the life of a person with dyslexia. More often, they can get their lost self-esteem back since they have found something where they are successful in.

Sadly, not all cases of dyslexia have this kind of pattern. There are times when adulthood comes, the worse the condition gets. However, this mainly depends on the personal outlook of the person. That is why a positive outlook should be promoted.

Late Adult Dyslexia Diagnosis

Dyslexia is a learning difficulty that affects people of all ages. Just as with other disabilities, early detection of the condition and early intervention are beneficial to the person with the disability. However, this is not always the case with dyslexia.

An Overlooked Beginning

Most of the time, the beginnings of dyslexia is overlooked, which is the reason why a lot of cases are only diagnosed during adulthood. To think of it, in present culture when a child has not yet learned to fluently read by the age of ten or eleven years, he or she would be often thought of to be lacking in motivation or intelligence.

Most people would think that they are stupid or lazy. However, in most cases, they are neither of the two. Most likely, they have dyslexia, which is a learning disability that causes their difficulty in understanding written language, even though they have normal or even higher-than-normal IQ.

Faulty Wiring And Early Detection

The most recent studies show that the difficulties in reading that dyslexic people experience are due to "faulty wiring" in specific brain areas that have a relation to learning and language. Research also shows that identifiable genetic variations or defects are the partial cause of this faulty wiring.

Early screening and detection for such variations makes it possible for you to have appropriate and timely remedial training. Most experts suggest that children should be allowed to deal with their condition to overcome it and at least learn how to read at an acceptable level. However, since dyslexia is sometimes only diagnosed during adulthood, the benefits of early detection are not maximized.

Late Detection

Although there are people who only become dyslexic during their adulthood, due to stroke and traumatic brain injury, in most cases the condition is a developmental disorder. According to experts, still, the majority of cases reported of people with dyslexia are adults who have had it ever since childhood but only knew they had it when they were already adults.

This late detection of the condition is something most adult dyslexics are troubled with since early intervention is not a choice anymore. However, if you are one of those who had late detection, there is no reason to be troubled. Intervention no matter how early or late is still intervention, even though they may have varying effects.

The Issue On Brain Plasticity

Late detection becomes an issue due to the premise of brain plasticity. Research shows that younger people or even animals have a more elastic brain than older counterparts. The relevance of brain plasticity is that it is one important factor in relation to intervention.

Since the brain is more elastic when you are younger; rewiring of the brain is then possible, since it hasn’t reached its mature state and continues to develop. Thus, if ever a learning disability like dyslexia is present, then your brain can still be developed to function at a more acceptable level, where the condition has minimal effect.

A lot of adults recently diagnosed with the condition fear that intervention would do them no good, simply because their brain is not as elastic anymore as children’s. However, recent studies show that the brain’s property of elasticity is still present even with adults.

This recent finding on plasticity in the adult brain is a breakthrough for adult dyslexics. So if you are an adult that had late diagnosis, then be happy! There is still hope for your condition to improve, even if only to an acceptable level.

Adult Dyslexia Basics

Dyslexia can be a very problematic condition that particularly affects a person’s daily living activities. However, it is not one of those well known conditions like cancer, AIDS, and the likes. To understand how dyslexia affects people, specifically adults, you must first understand what dyslexia is, its causes, severity, and prevalence.

What Is Dyslexia?

Dyslexia is basically a condition that presents a person’s difficulty in processing information that is usually related to short-term memory deficiency and visual coordination. If you have this condition, your short-term memory would be particularly weak. It can be either your auditory or visual memory that is affected or both. Due to this, being a dyslexic person, it would be difficult for you to learn the connection between the spoken sound and the written symbol.

It is mainly categorized to be as a learning disability, since it mainly affects the vital areas in which learning is related to. Since auditory and visual skills are needed in learning, dyslexia can make one disabled in this field.



How Severe Can One Be?

The severity and range of the condition can vary widely for dyslexic people. The main problem areas of difficulty would be reading, spelling, numeration, writing, time-keeping and personal organization. The degree of the effect on an individual can be observed from mild spelling and reading difficulties to severe problems on organization or even complete illiteracy. There are no typical cases for dyslexia, since each case can be unique from one another.

Diagnosis

Some people do not even know that they are dyslexic; while there are a huge number of people, who are only diagnosed when they have reached adulthood already. This may be due to the unpopularity of the condition. Sometimes, it can be misdiagnosed too to be as a different condition that may present similar symptoms.

What Are The Causes?



There is no pinpointed cause of dyslexia, even though much research has been conducted to be able to explain its main cause. However, there are some researches that have gathered some relevant findings on the condition. Some neurological research suggests that a person who has this condition may have some abnormality on how his or her brain’s left hemisphere functions. This is relevant since the left hemisphere is the one that controls your lexical system.

Cognitive research, however, in the past years has mainly focused on the possibility that the cause is related to having problems with phonological awareness, which is one’s awareness of specific speech sounds in words. Additionally, there is a speculation that such problems are somewhat related to a specific portion of the brain.

Whatever the cause may be, there appears little doubt that a lot of people having literacy problems really do experience sound insensitivity in different ways. Due to this deficit, reading problems often occurs. What is also obvious is that even though the cause of the problems can be multi-causal and can be different from one person to another, they can still be the main source of intense frustration and depression for any dyslexic person.

Incidence And Prevalence

The estimated incidences of dyslexia can vary greatly every year. It is estimated that it occurs from about to 4-10% of the population. It is also believed that prevalence in males is four times greater than with females.

General Effects In Adulthood

Dyslexia is a condition that is quite hard to recognize. It is also one condition that most people who have it try to hide. Simple tasks like filling in forms, taking phone messages, or even completing timesheets can already be major problems when you have this condition.