Signs & Symptoms of Dyslexia

Listed below are some common areas that dyslexic children often show difficulties in. However, it should be noted that not every dyslexic child will present with all of these difficulties. In addition, sometimes children who present with some of these signs could also have other difficulties aside from dyslexia.

Literacy Difficulties

Common errors in reading and spelling:

• Confuses letters that look alike e.g. b/d, p/q
• May reverse letter sequences e.g. "was" for "saw", "on" for “no”
• Makes anagrams of words e.g. "tired" for "tried", "wives" for "views"
• Mixes up words that start with the same letters e.g. “there”, “that”, “the”, etc.
• Omits or adds letters in words e.g. “lip” for “limp”
• Unable to write down a word even when the letters are dictated
• Unable to identify the appropriate letter when given a sound and vice versa

Difficulties associated with reading

• Reads below grade level
• Reads hesitantly and effortfully
• Difficulty recognising familiar / high-frequency words
• Substitutes words of similar meaning e.g., “road” for “street”
• Misreads common words, such as “a” for “and”, “the” for “a”, “from” for “for”, etc
• Ignores punctuation, e.g. not pausing for commas etc.
• Difficulty remembering and/or understanding text passages
• Difficulty extracting important points from a passage
• Loses place in a line of print
• Skips or re-reads a line of words in a passage
• Leaves out words or adds extra words
• Complains that words or lines of text on page seem to move, yet standard eye examinations do not reveal a problem

Difficulties associated with writing

• Poor handwriting
• Numerous spelling errors in a piece of work and may spell the same word in several different ways.
• Confuses similar sounding words when spelling, e.g. "one" and "won"
• Poor standard of written work compared to oral ability
• Messy, badly organised work
• Has trouble copying from the board in class
• Letters, syllables and words omitted, inserted or placed in the wrong order
• Mixes capital and small letter within words e.g., dysLexiA
• Lack of punctuation, or totally inappropriate use of punctuation
• Cannot write in a straight line

Short-term and/or Working Memory

• May learn and understand how to do something, but requires frequent reminders before they remember to do it.
• Difficulty remembering multiple-step instructions
• May have excellent long-term memory for movies, experiences, locations and faces, but poor memory for sequences as well as unfamiliar facts and information

Sequencing

• Difficulty sorting or ordering information
• Writing/reciting the alphabet sequentially
• Remembering a list of instructions
• Difficulty in Mathematics
• Giving a good verbal account of an event
• Difficulty reporting events in their correct order
• Has difficulty remembering the days of the week, months of the year in order

Speech

• Delayed speech
• Difficulty expressing thoughts and may communicate more with gestures rather than words
• Difficulty finding the words he/she wants to use
• People who do not know the child well have difficulty understanding what he/she says
• Mispronounces long words, or transposes phrases and words when speaking
• Difficulty attaching names to things and people

Time / Mathematics

• Difficulty telling time as well as managing and being on time
• Difficulty counting objects and/or dealing with money
• Difficulty with Mathematical word problems despite adequate ability to solve arithmetic operations
• May have a problem with numbers and calculations involving adding, subtracting and time tables
• May be confused by similar-looking mathematical signs; e.g., + and - ; < (less than) and > (greater than)
• May be confused by terms, e.g., deduction, minus and subtraction; adding versus find the total
• May reverse numbers, such as reading or writing “17” for “71”
• May transpose numbers i.e., 752 for 572; or transcribe their answers wrongly
• May have a difficulty with performing mental calculations

General

• Disorganised
• Easily frustrated or emotional about school, reading, writing, or mathematics
• Appears bright and articulate but performs unexpectedly poorer than expected in the academic areas
• Performs much better when tested orally, but not in written form
• Has difficulty sustaining attention
• Has a poor sense of direction and/or confusion between left and right

Common signs of dyslexia by school level

Preschool

• Later than expected speech development
• Poor vocabulary development
• Enjoys being read to but shows little interest in letters or words
• Hesitant and effortful reading especially when reading aloud; may lose place in text and miss out words, add extra words or substitute words
• Difficulty in learning the names of letters or sounds in the alphabet; difficulty in writing or saying the alphabet in order
• Difficulty in learning days of the week
• Difficulty in learning nursery rhymes and playing rhyming games
• Confusion of similar letters such as “b” and “d”, “p” and “q”
• Confusion of words that look alike such as “on” and “no”, “was” and “saw”
• Difficulty in learning spelling
• May spell a word in different ways in one piece of work
• Confusion between upper and lower case letters
• Difficulty in breaking words into syllables and putting syllables back in correct order; for example, “bisghetti” for “spaghetti”
• Short-term memory limitations
• Mirror writing

Primary School

• Slow to learn the connection between letters and sounds
• Confuses basic words (run, eat, want)
• Makes consistent reading and spelling errors including letter reversals (b/d), inversions (m/w), transpositions (felt/left), and substitutions (house/home)
• Transposes number sequences and confuses arithmetic signs (+, -, x, /, =)
• Slow or poor recall of facts
• Slow to learn new skills, relies heavily on memorization
• Impulsive, difficulty planning
• Unstable pencil grip
• Trouble learning about time
• Poor coordination, unaware of physical surroundings, prone to accidents
• Slow to learn prefixes, suffixes, root words, and other spelling strategies
• Avoids reading aloud
• Has difficulty with handwriting; may have awkward, fist-like, or tight pencil grip
• Avoids writing assignments

Secondary School

• Usually reads below grade level
• May reverse letter sequences e.g., “solid” for “soil”, “left” for “felt”
• Slow to learn prefixes, suffixes, root words, and other spelling strategies
• May have difficulty with spelling; spells same word differently on the same page
• May avoid reading aloud
• May have trouble with word problems in math
• May avoid writing
• Has difficulty with handwriting; may have awkward, fist-like, or tight pencil grip
• Slow or poor recall of facts
• May have difficulty with comprehension
• May have trouble with non-literal language e.g., idioms, jokes, proverbs, slang etc.
• May have difficulty with planning, organising and managing time, materials and tasks

College

• May read very slowly with many inaccuracies
• Continues to spell incorrectly, frequently spells the same word differently in a single piece of writing
• May avoid reading and writing tasks
• May have trouble summarising and outlining
• May have trouble answering open-ended questions on tests
• May have difficulty learning a foreign language
• May have poor memory skills
• May work slowly
• May pay too little attention to details or focus too much on them
• May misread information
• May have an inadequate vocabulary
• May have an inadequate store of knowledge from previous reading
• May have difficulty with planning, organizing and managing time, materials and tasks