Dyslexia is not a problem only experienced by children and teenagers.

An adult dyslexic may find that they get frustrated at themselves and may experience periods of intense anger and/or depression at what they perceive as their own failure to achieve their goals. Increasingly, jobs require the individual to pass exams often involving reading, math and writing. This can cause anxiety, stress and result in the person failing or avoiding the job completely.

Characteristics of Dyslexics

The following list are some of the characteristic traits and behaviours that a dyslexic child will exhibit. The symptoms can vary from day to day, minute to minute. The most consistent things about these traits is the inconsistency – one day the symptom is present the next it is not.

Look at the following list and see how you shape up! You may be surprised. Contact Dyslexia Australia if you recognize 10 or more symptoms - On-line form - click here

Dyslexia Australia is pleased to announce our additional service - Dyslexia Screening Test for children aged 6 1/2 to 15 year old.  Please contact us to make an appointment with our Education Consultant.  Currently, this service is only offered in Brisbane (Loganholme) and Sydney, however, we have received many requests for other areas and will be happy to provide service when we have sufficient numbers.  Please submit your request.

Related Learning Disabilities

The following related categories which can be addressed through Dyslexia Australia:

Central Auditory Processing Disorder(CAPD)/Auditory Processing

This term is being increasingly used to describe individuals who have problems with listening, either in distinguishing sounds in their language or in comprehending the words they hear.

People with CAPD may have trouble understanding what they hear, acting on it quickly, remembering it for a short or long time, and formulating a verbal response

An example of the disorder:

A child that is told “Do not step in the puddle” may hear “Step in the puddle".

This is due to the dyslexic not hearing the words “Do” and “not”.. Unfortunately, this results in the child being misunderstood and labeled with a behavioural problem such as “oppositional defiance disorder”.

Perceptual/Visual Difficulties

• Complains of dizziness, headaches or stomach aches while reading.
• Confused by letters, numbers, words, sequences, or verbal explanations.
• Reading or writing shows repetitions, additions, transpositions, omissions, substitutions, and reversals in letters, numbers and/or words.
• Complains of feeling or seeing non-existent movement while reading, writing, or copying.
• Seems to have difficulty with vision, yet eye exams don't reveal a problem.
• Extremely keen sighted and observant, or lacks depth perception and peripheral vision.
• Reads and rereads with little comprehension.

Dysgraphia

This is a difficulty in writing and graphing. It generally refers to extremely poor handwriting.

People with dysgraphia may display the following signs:

• May exhibit strong verbal but particularly poor writing skills.
• Random (or non-existent) punctuation.
• Generally illegible writing, despite appropriate time and attention given the task.
• Inconsistencies: mixtures of print and cursive, upper and lower case.
• Irregular sizes, shapes or slant of letters.
• Unfinished words or letters, omitted words.
• Inconsistent position on page with respect to lines and margins and inconsistent spaces between words and letters.
• Cramped or unusual grip, especially holding the writing instrument very close to the paper, or holding thumb over two fingers and writing from the wrist.
• Talking to self while writing, or carefully watching the hand that is writing.
• Slow or laboured copying or writing - even if it is neat and legible.

Dyspraxia

A dyspraxic person has balance and co-ordination problems. They will show several of the symptoms below:

• Shows up as "clumsiness" caused by motor difficulties caused by perceptual problems, especially visual-motor and kinesthetic-motor difficulties.
• Prone to accidents, may fall a lot, bump into furniture.
• Poor hand-eye, foot-eye coordination.
• Slow and poor at dressing, unable to tie shoelaces, do up buttons etc.
• Speech and language difficulties.
• Difficulty in holding a pen properly.
• Poor writing and drawing abilities.
• Reading and spelling difficulties.
• Walk awkwardly.
• Confused about which hand to use.
• Difficulties throwing or catching a ball.
• Poor short term memory, they often forget tasks learned the previous day.
• Reading and writing difficulties.
• Cannot hold a pen or pencil properly.
• Cannot hop, skip or ride a bike.
• Cannot answer simple questions even though they know the answers.
• Speech problems, slow to learn to speak or speech may be incoherent.
  

Dyscalculia

Dyscalculia is when there are problems with maths - counting, adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing.

The following are some of the common characteristics of people with dyscalculia:

When writing, reading and recalling numbers, these are some of the common mistakes made:

• Number additions, substitutions, transpositions, omissions, and reversals.
• Inability to grasp and remember math concepts, rules, formulas, and sequence.
• Gets lost or disoriented easily. May have a poor sense of direction, lose things often, and seem absent minded.
• Difficulty remembering dance step sequences, rules for playing sports.
• Difficulty with the abstract concepts of time and direction.
• Difficulty with time management, schedules, and sequences of past or future events.
• Unable to keep track of time. May be chronically late.
• Inconsistent results in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
• Poor mental math ability.

Dysphonetia/Dyseidesia

ADD/ADHD

People with ADD/ADHD display problems with hyperactivity, hypoactivity, inability to focus, difficulty staying on task, and inappropriate social behaviours.

The most common features include:

• Hyperactivity (excessive activity and physical restlessness)
• Distractibility (poor sustained attention to tasks)
• Impulsivity (impaired impulse control and delay of gratification)

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