Sometimes, parents can become too preoccupied with ensuring that their children excel even in their preschool years that they do not see warning signs for certain learning disabilities. This is especially true in cultures who value education very highly and put an almost undue pressure on children as young as preschool-age to excel and beat the rest of their class in terms of grades and academic performance. For example, the parents may get so angry with the child for returning poor grades that they fail to see the underlying problem of a learning disability.
While not all kids who perform poorly in school have learning disabilities, it is important for parents to be aware of some of them, as well as possible warning signs to watch out for. Dyslexia is one of these learning disabilities that are not easy to spot, probably because it deals more with a child’s reading skills and may be overlooked since the child appears normal in all other respects.
Dyslexia is an inherent learning disability in which a child has trouble comprehending letters, sequences, and direction. For example, a child may have confusion for the letter B and D, particularly in the small-case form. Directional problems also manifest in that the child has trouble differentiating q from d, p from b, and many other letter-mix-ups, resulting in a very troublesome time reading and understanding written text. As the child grows with the condition undetected, his constant failure at reading may cause him to quit reading altogether; as such, it is no surprise that children with dyslexia either grow up into loners or the class clowns, as they find ways to cope with their failures.
If your grade-school child has been struggling with school and you can find no other reason why he does not enjoy it, such as ruling out bullying or physical exhaustion from an overloaded schedule, perhaps it is time you considered the possibility of a learning disability:
1. Dyslexia, as characterized by reading confusion, usually comes with poor test results as a warning sign. However, it is not just the test score that can give you a clue: instead, check the mistakes that your child is making in his tests. If there is spelling involved, you can spot signs of dyslexia in the interchanging of certain letters, such as b and d, p and q, or in the sequence of sounds. For example, a dyslexic child might spell animal as aminal.
2. Your suspicions may have stronger ground if you compare test results for spelling-related tests versus those with numbers. While some dyslexic children also suffer from dyscalcula, or a disability to understand numbers, the majority do fine with numbers.
3. A dyslexic child also typically has trouble memorizing sequences. Does your child have trouble remembering to turn off the faucet after he washes his hands? Does he usually forget to hang his coat on the hook and just leave it lying about? Although this may happen simply out of carelessness and childishness, when it happens to a child whose other siblings have had no trouble with the routine at the same age, it may be a warning signal. If the child is old enough to learn tying his shoes and he has trouble doing so, it may also signal a problem with remembering sequences.
4. Dyslexia manifests not just in reading, but also in sequences. This means that even speech errors can clue you in on the condition, especially as the child is saying words that come with more than two syllables. For example, a dyslexic child may call spaghetti “bisgetti,” or magazine becomes “mazageen.”
If these warning signs show up in your child and you are seriously concerned, perhaps it is time to have a diagnostic test taken at a specialised facility for learning disabilities. Remember, early intervention is always recommended for children with dyslexia, and with this early action, any dyslexic child can be trained to read at a young age, allowing him or her to operate well even in mainstream schools. The earlier you take action, the better chances your child will have for enjoying a normal life without being stunted by his disability.
