About Dyslexia

Senate Bill 1, Section 38.003 (d) (1) defines dyslexia as follows:

"Dyslexia" means a disorder of constitutional origin manifested by a difficulty in learning to read, write, or spell, despite conventional instruction, adequate intelligence, and socio-cultural opportunity.

It is one of several distinct learning disabilities.  It is a specific language-based disorder of constitutional origin characterized by difficulties in single word decoding, usually reflecting insufficient phonological processing abilities.

Characteristics of Dyslexia include the following (if they are the unexpected for the individual's age, educational level, or cognitive abilities):

• Difficulty with the development of phonological awareness and phonological processing skills (processing the sounds of speech), including segmenting or breaking spoken words into individual sounds;

• Difficulty accurately decoding nonsense or unfamiliar words;

• Difficulty reading single words in isolations;

• Inaccurate and labored oral reading;

• Lack of reading fluency;

• Variable degrees of difficulty with reading comprehension;

• Variable degrees of difficulty learning the names of the letters and their associated sounds.

• Difficulty learning to spell;

• Difficulty in word finding and rapid naming;

• Variable difficulty with aspects of written composition;

• Difficulty with learning and reproducing the alphabet in correct sequence (in oral and/or written form;

• Sometimes there is a difficulty in arithmetic with long problems, word problems, and sequencing;

• Family history of similar problems.

The difficulty of the child identified as having dyslexia is in reading, single-word decoding, reading fluency, reading comprehension, written composition, and spelling.  The problems of a child with a learning disorder may include these difficulties and other difficulties that do not necessarily pertain to reading exclusively.

The beginning is the most important part of the work.

~~Plato