Dyslexia

What Is Dyslexia?

Dyslexia is a learning difficulty in acquiring reading skills that occurs despite normal intelligence, adequate education, and an appropriate socio-cultural environment, and is not caused by a lack of learning opportunities, intellectual disability, or brain disease.

This difficulty may involve a perceptual integration disorder within the central nervous system (such as difficulty distinguishing words, arranging words in the correct order in a sentence, phonetic-audiovisual integration problems, or visuomotor dysfunction).

✔ With a properly planned special education program, these children can learn to read and write.
✔ However, this difficulty never completely disappears; a dyslexic child will never reach the same level of automatic reading as a typical child.

According to the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition) prepared by the American Psychiatric Association, developmental learning disabilities are grouped into three subcategories:

✔ First subcategory: Learning disorders, which include reading disorder, mathematics disorder, and writing disorder.
✔ Second subcategory: Communication disorders, which include developmental expressive language disorder, mixed receptive-expressive language disorder, phonological disorder (articulation disorder), and stuttering.
✔ Third subcategory: Motor skills disorders, which include developmental motor coordination disorder.

What Are the Types of Dyslexia?

There are two pathways to learning reading and writing — one direct and one indirect.

✔ The “direct route” (visual route): Reading is learned by recognizing the entire word without engaging in letter-sound analysis.
✔ The “indirect route” (phonological route): Reading is learned from parts to whole, through letter-sound analysis; it operates by converting individual graphemes into phonemes.

Accordingly, two types of dyslexia have been identified:
✔ P-type (perceptual type): These children read accurately but slowly and may make errors such as pauses or repetitions.
✔ L-type (linguistic type): These children read fluently and quickly but may skip or substitute words or syllables.

At What Ages Does Dyslexia Appear?

✔ The greatest challenge with dyslexic children is not treatment but diagnosis.
✔ Like other learning disorders, dyslexia is often a hidden condition that may not be apparent at first glance.
✔ Therefore, it can be difficult to detect before a child starts school.
✔ It is usually recognized during childhood, at the stage when reading begins.

What Causes Dyslexia?

✔ There is no single or specific cause for learning difficulties.
✔ Genetic factors are significant; dyslexia is more common among first-degree relatives.
✔ Large-scale studies have shown that between 52% and 89.7% of dyslexic children have a family history of dyslexia.
✔ Any factor that disrupts brain functions during early development — such as genetic, congenital, or prenatal causes — may lead to learning difficulties.

What Factors Trigger the Onset of Dyslexia?

✔ Prenatal factors such as maternal infections, medication use, and poor nutrition, as well as complications during or after birth (difficult labor, umbilical cord entanglement, placental problems, birth trauma), can contribute to dyslexia.
✔ Premature birth, low birth weight, prolonged jaundice, meningitis, encephalitis, and anemia are also risk factors.
✔ Hereditary factors may also play a role; more than 75% of reading and learning disorders show hereditary transmission.

Common Features (Symptoms) of Dyslexia

✔ They may confuse the concepts of right-left, up-down, before-after.
✔ They may have difficulty distinguishing their right from left.
✔ Hand-leg-eye dominance may be mixed or left-sided.
✔ They may confuse similar letters (such as b/d or p/b).
✔ They may confuse similar sounds (such as b/m or f/v).
✔ They may substitute synonyms or semantically related words (e.g., carpet/rug, aunt/uncle).
✔ They may omit letters within words (writing “pra” instead of “para”).
✔ They may reverse letter order (writing “sak” instead of “kas”).
✔ They may skip or rearrange syllables.
✔ They may skip lines while reading.
✔ They may fail to leave spaces between words while writing.
✔ They may write in a “mirror image” style; letters or words are reversed 180 degrees, appearing correctly when viewed in a mirror.
✔ They may struggle with punctuation marks.
✔ They may find it difficult to grasp the overall meaning of a text.
✔ They may have difficulty explaining what they have read.
✔ Their attention span is short, and they are easily distracted.
✔ They may have poor social development and struggle to get along with peers.
✔ Their depth and distance perception may be impaired.
✔ They may have difficulty distinguishing figure and background.
✔ They may have delays in visual, auditory perception, and motor skills.
✔ Their short-term (visual or auditory) memory may be weak.
✔ Sometimes they can do math mentally but cannot write it down.
✔ They may not remember or visualize what they have seen.
✔ They may confuse the concepts of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
✔ They may not distinguish the year, day, or season they are in.
✔ They may forget the location of their books and lose belongings.

What Problems Accompany Dyslexia?

✔ Dyslexia can coexist with math learning disorder (dyscalculia) and writing disorder (dysgraphia).
✔ Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), behavioral disorders, and depression may also accompany dyslexia.
✔ Social skills are often weaker compared to peers.

How Should Dyslexic Children Be Supported in Development and Education?

✔ Learning disabilities cannot be treated with medication.
✔ Behavioral techniques are used in educational programs designed for learning difficulties.
✔ Therapeutic approaches may support family adaptation problems alongside educational therapy.
✔ The child continues education in a regular school while receiving individual or group-based special education.
✔ The underlying psychological processes hindering development must be identified and corrected for effective progress.