The word dyslexia means “difficulty with words or language,” and is frequently used to refer to a child — or adult — who seems much brighter than what his reading and written work suggest.

Dyslexia belongs to the field of learning disabilities (LD). Although there is a large number of other “disabilities” to be found within the LD field, dyslexia — also called a reading disability — remains the most common. Estimates of learning-disabled students who are dyslexic vary between 70 and 85 percent. Some experts are of the opinion that this percentage is even higher, so much so that labelling a child as learning disabled is understood to include a reading disability.

Dyslexia can be identified by the following symptoms:

• One of the most obvious telltale signs is reversals. People with this kind of problem often confuse letters like b and d, either when reading or when writing, or they sometimes read (or write) words like “rat” for “tar,” or “won” for “now.”
• Another sure sign, which needs no confirmation by means of any form of testing, is elisions, that is when a person sometimes reads or writes “cat” when the word is actually “cart.”
• The person who reads very slowly and hesitantly, who reads without fluency, word by word, or who constantly loses his place, thereby leaving out whole chunks or reading the same passage twice, has a reading problem.
• The person may try to sound out the letters of the word, but then be unable to say the correct word. For example, he may sound the letters “c-a-t” but then say “cold.”
• He may read or write the letters of a word in the wrong order, like “left” for “felt,” or the syllables in the wrong order, like “emeny” for “enemy,” or words in the wrong order, like “are there” for “there are.”
• He may spell words as they sound, for example “rite” for “right.”
• He may read with poor comprehension, or it may be that he remembers little of what he reads.
• The person may have a poor and/or slow handwriting. This problem is often referred to as “dysgraphia.”

What Causes Dyslexia?

As early as 1896 Baldwin noted that human learning is a stratified process. This implies that certain skills have to be mastered first, before it becomes possible to master subsequent skills. One has to learn to count before it becomes possible to learn to add and subtract. In the same way, there are skills that a child must have mastered first, before he or she will be proficient in reading and spelling. Unless these underlying shortcomings are addressed first, the child’s reading and spelling will not improve.

Some of the underlying deficits that cause dyslexia include

• Poor concentration.
• Poor perception — visual, auditory and haptic.
• The inability to discriminate, synthesise and analyse in terms of foreground-background, form, size, position in space/time and colour.
• Poor memory — short and long term, visual and auditory.
• The inability to decode, integrate and classify information.
• Poor fine motor coordination

Audiblox Dyslexia Programme

Audiblox is a system of cognitive exercises, aimed at the development of foundational learning skills. It is effective for dyslexia, dysgraphia, and other learning difficulties. Audiblox can be applied one-on-one and in a group setting.

When Audiblox is applied on an individual basis, the Audiblox Dyslexia programme is highly recommended for children — or adults — who suffer from dyslexia. This programme places emphasis on the deficits that cause dyslexia symptoms.

In order to follow the Audiblox Dyslexia programme you will need an Audiblox kit. The programme appears in Chapter 20 of the book The Right to Read. The exercises are explained in this book and demonstrated on the Audiblox training DVD.

To learn more about Audiblox and how it helps for dyslexia, visit Dyslexia Online.