What is Dyslexia?

Dyslexia is a common learning disability affecting 5-10% of people. It is used as a general term for any disorder that involves difficulty in learning to read or interpret words in people of otherwise normal general intelligence.

Dyslexia becomes apparent during a child’s school years when they start to deal with a pronounced difficulty in learning to read, write and spell. It can be very distressing for both the child and their parents. Dyslexic children are often devastated by their poor performance and have to deal with low self-esteem associated with failure in school.

What Causes Dyslexia?

While humans learn language naturally, that is not the case for reading. Children do not have to be taught to speak, it’s a skill they acquire seemingly effortlessly because human brains are already wired to pick up and learn language. By contrast, children do have to be taught to read. 

Reading requires the ability to link speech sounds to written symbols or letters. That ability involves four brain areas covering the following four core functions:

1) The ability to recognize speech sounds.
2) The ability to speak by turning sounds into words.
3) The ability to see and recognize written words.
4) The ability to integrate all this information to create meaning.

These four different parts of the brain are linked by a complex neural super-highway. In children with dyslexia, these four regions to not work effectively together and the connections are under-developed. Also the ‘visual word form’ area of the brain is less developed in people with dyslexia.

Can I really end dyslexia for my child?

Yes you can. Advances in our understanding of how the brain works have demonstrated that our brain has the ability to change itself, even well beyond early stages of development.

To end dyslexia the brain needs to be rewired and the critical neuronal pathways in the left side of the brain strengthened. Numerous research studies have shown that targeted, intensive, and systematic intervention with Fast ForWord and Reading Assistant programs which are based on neuro-science and evidence-based best practices for reading instruction have consistently helped students achieve and maintain their reading grade level in school.

These programs improve not just reading, but overall learning and brain function improving core skills like memory, attention, processing speed and sequencing.