Is There Help For Dyslexia?
Dyslexia is a lifelong problem that affects one’s ability of writing and reading. While the brain abnormality that causes dyslexia has no known cure, there are many dyslexia treatments that help children to read and write and be successful in school and life.
These dyslexia treatments are most effective if the condition is detected early and the treatment started at an early age. The severity of one’s dyslexia will determine the interventions and treatments necessary. Assessing your child will help in determining the best approach and technique to be used during the intervention.
Education Intervention
Different education techniques and approaches can be applied at school or at home to help children with dyslexia. They range from regular teaching at home or learning centers, to one-on-one lessons with a specialist education therapist. Dyslexia training for teachers can help teachers assess children with speech difficulties and issues like dyslexia and develop a suitable education program for each child.
Most educational, intervention and dyslexia programs focus on equipping the child with phonological skills. This is done using phonics intervention, which helps a child with dyslexia to identify and process the relationship between letters and the sounds they make. Education therapists with dyslexia training can give personalized lessons suitable for children to help them overcome anxiety and build self-confidence as well as develop academic skills. Parents should only engage a specialist with the proper training and who has gone through a dyslexia course for teachers to ensure your child is properly treated.
A well trained therapist will help your child to:
- Learn to identify and recognize sounds that make up words, i.e. phonemes
- Understand letters and strings of letters that represent these sounds
- Learn how to combine letters to form words and with time use those words to form sentences
- Read words out loud, accurately and comprehend what he/she is reading
- Monitor their progress by encouraging them to ask questions
There are dyslexia courses online that can help parents to apply educational intervention at home and contribute to the successes of their children academically and in life. For success of the intervention at home, use a step by step, highly structured program and encourage your child to practice regularly what they learn.
Parents play a significant role in helping children with dyslexia. While it’s advisable to for a specialist to treat your child, you can also improve help your child at home by training them, encouraging them and improving their confidence. As a parent you can:
- Read to your child to help them build up their vocabulary and listening skills. This will also help to encourage your child to develop interest in a wide variety of books.
- Share when reading by discussing what the books are about.
- Don’t get bored to read your child’s favourite book again and again. Repetition will help them to become familiar with the text and improve their understanding.
- Encourage your child to read alone to build their self-confidence and become fluent as well as independent
- Don’t make reading a chore, this can be frustrating for cbildren with attention and learning issues. Instead, make reading fun by understanding what topics your child is interested in.
- Consider taking dyslexia training courses that will help you understand how to help your child.
Dyslexia Resources and Technological Techniques
As the child grows, technology can be introduced to support them in improving their reading and writing skills. Older children who have been diagnosed with dyslexia are more comfortable learning using computers than books. The visual environment makes learning fun and engaging and is ideal for older children with dyslexia.
Dyslexia programmes like Ms Word have spellchecker that will highlight mistakes in your child’s writing. Other software have text-to-speech options which helps in proper pronunciation. With technology and educational software and other dyslexia resources, reading is made easier and your child can now read alone and build his/her confidence.
Psychological Counselling
Children with dyslexia are known to struggle emotionally and are most likely to be diagnosed with mental health issues. Children with attention and learning issues have also been found to have a higher likely hood of four to six times of being diagnosed with mental disorders than their peers.
While deciding your child’s needs, psychological counselling can be tough to many parents; getting your child the help he or she needs from a professional psychotherapist can impact his life positively.
Dyslexia In Adults
Early detection and intervention of dyslexia can reduce learning and attention issues during adulthood. However, dyslexia in adults is treated with the same intervention and techniques like those used in children. Technology is a fundamental aspect when it comes to children with with dyslexia. It can also help when it comes to adults.
Use of a multi-sensory approach is common in adult intervention. Here, one is trained to use several senses at the same time. An example of multisensory approach is where the adult with dyslexia is taught to see a letter, say its name as well as sound and write it down all at the same time. With technology and dyslexia resources, large activities are broken down to smaller tasks to making the entire learning way easier. In addition, visual representation of plans or subject is more engaging than writing notes in a book.
Help For Adults With Dyslexia
Adults with dyslexia are faced with challenges in life and employment. To ensure success in their life and work place:
- Seek instructional and evaluation services that can help them with writing and reading, their age notwithstanding.
- Seek additional, reasonable training and assistance from your employer such as speech to text software and digital recorders.
- Give your instructions verbally rather than writing.
- Ask for extra time for work you find difficult.
Many people with dyslexia can learn to read and write and achieve their goals in school and in life, but they need help from parents and specialists. This is because experts will use different techniques that are suitable for each case of dyslexia. Parents can also help their children at home, but you will have to have your child evaluated to ensure you take the appropriate steps in helping your child.
Look for additional dyslexia information online to better understand dyslexia and the techniques that can work.