Dyslexia Week: Early Identification

Welcome to another day of Dyslexia Awareness Week, where each day has it’s own theme. Today’s theme is Early Identification. So… this post is all about how to identify the signs of dyslexia.

Most people will probably know dyslexia as difficulty reading, moving letters and/ or issues with writing. Those are some of the main bits of it, but it can be so much more varied than that too.
Dyslexia is different for everybody and issues one person has may not be an issue for other while something some people are great at may be hard for others. There are some signs that tend to indicate dyslexia though and you might be surprised by how many there are (I was).

You might also think dyslexia is a childhood thing. Well that’s not quite true either. Dyslexia is a lifelong condition which means you are born with it and will have it until death. Children can often have a harder time with it because adults are more able to develop coping mechanisms, but it’s also quite common for dyslexia to go unnoticed until adult life. A common trigger for noticing dyslexia is college or uni because of the increased need for independent work and study. That’s when I noticed things myself. I started having more difficulties at college and eventually I got diagnosed with dyslexia and ADD just before the start of uni.

Anyway, let’s get down to business. Bellow I’m going to add in some of the common signs and traits of dyslexia along with a bit of explanation and advice on how to recognise things. There are quite a few of them so I’ll try to break them into categories to make things easier.
What I would love is if you guys could get involved and either add some of your own experiences and traits or ask any questions you have about traits, how to recognise them or what to do if you think you have some. I’ll be adding some of my own experiences as I go too.

Reading:


Writing:


Thinking:


Behaviour/ appearance:


Milestones:


There you go. That's a list of some of the common signs of dyslexia along with some of my personal experience.
If you're wondering about some things you've noticed about yourself, but they aren't there or you experience them a bit differently do bare in mind that everybody's experience is different and also that there are multiple forms of learning difficulty so you might be experiencing something from one of them. If you are noticing things you think are strange it's always worth having a chat with your GP even if you can't find a condition they match to.
You can find some more info on dyslexia on sites like Dyslexia Action.

My brother has dyslexia. He often got more attention and help with homework. Although I was fine with my school work, sometimes it made me feel a little left out. I kept it to myself until they paid my brother as a reward to learn the time, but I got stickers. I tried my best to understand and be supportive of my brother, but I felt my parents were a little unfair. They found out how I felt and ended up giving me money and realised that it wasn't fair to me. They reminded me that there is no parenting guide book and it showed it was a lesson to them as well.

People don't really talk about the siblings of someone with dyslexia, however, I am not bothered by it at all and we have been treated entirely equal all of our lives. My brother is actually really not bad at reading and writing now. He is more intelligent than he realises, but he lost a lot of confidence after school, with the little support he got. He often got frustrated and I think he felt like people viewed him as dumb. He is constantly working in dead end jobs and I hear of people getting degrees when they have dyslexia and I wish he would look ahead and aim for something bigger.

I think you touch on a lot of issues common to a lot of disabilities and conditions there. The idea of siblings feeling left out in terms of attention is very common, as is the idea that disability is somehow a limitation on what you can achieve. Thanks for sharing.

Those are some really good points you touch on. Dyslexia and other learning difficulties can kill confidence and it's really important to try to build it back up, but with other kids around you do need to be careful about what looks like special treatment or seems unfair. You don't want the other kids feeling left out r ignored and you certainly don't want them resenting the other kid because of it.

It's really great that your parents did notice that and resolve it. Obviously it would be crazy to give every kid a reward for something they find easy just cos one kid has a hard time with it, but finding an equal challenge for those kids and giving them similar rewards for achieving it is totally an option. It's fair and it teaches kids that you can be proud of yourself regardless of what other people are doing.

My brother and I tended to get ignored a bit at school cos we were in a middle ground- both smart enough to not need help, but not the smartest and both good kids who didn't stir up trouble. My parents got so ****ed off with every report card I got where my name was spelt wrong and all it said was "is a lovely girl" or similar non-statement.
I never got rewards either. No certificated until it came to the "who doesn't have one?" stage and no stickers or anything. I guess people didn't think I needed the motivation cos I was an easy kid.

Lucky for us our parents built us up. If it had been left to school I'd be an illiterate puddle of low self esteem by now.

As for the sibling of dyslexia thing, it's not terribly obvious until you actually pay attention, but being a sibling of somebody with a special need or learning difficulty really does have an impact. It's a whole different home life and relationship model, even if it's just a tiny bit.

Thanks for your response. It's really interesting to hear it from another perspective.