Your questions answered by guidance counsellor Brian Mooney.
I was deeply distressed to be told recently by my son's teacher that she would advise me to explore the possibility that he may suffer from dyslexia or ADHD. I realise that he has been slower to read than my other children have, but I had put that down to the different rates at which different children develop, particularly as my older children are girls. Can you clarify what dyslexia involves and how I can help my son?
Dyslexia is characterised as "a reading ability below the expected level given a child's age or intelligence". Dyslexia falls at one end of a spectrum, much like obesity or hypertension.
Does lack of exposure to words explain certain cases of dyslexia? The fact is dyslexia occurs at all levels of intelligence. Many high-IQ dyslexic children are first pegged as lazy or unmotivated. Teachers cannot understand how bright children can be having so much trouble.
Although ADHD and dyslexia often occur together, this is not always the case. Children can also become inattentive when they feel frustrated and discouraged about their inability to read and learn. The "bored and restless" syndrome may explain why boys receive a diagnosis of dyslexia far more often than girls do. However, rigorous studies of reading difficulties show that the genders do not differ significantly.
In most cases, dyslexia stems from a weakness in processing sounds and sound combinations (called "phonological processing"). Children with dyslexia take longer to understand that words come apart into individual sounds and to manipulate these sounds. An instruction to say the word "sink" without the s, for example, could be a real stumper for a dyslexic child.
When people with dyslexia struggle to read, they are doing battle with their own brains - brains that are simply not "wired" for reading. A growing body of evidence pins dyslexia on a glitch in brain circuitry that makes reading extremely difficult.
Researchers have identified three areas on the left side of the brain involved in reading - two in the back of the brain and one in the front. When dyslexic children read, the areas in the back do not "activate" as they do in normal readers. One of the areas that consistently fails to activate is the "word form" region of the back of the brain, which is critical for reading fluency. Genes play a role in how quickly and automatically readers can convert letters into speech. People with weaknesses in this area tend to have family members with similar deficits.
That being said, although there is a genetic basis for difficulty in changing letters in unknown words into speech, the most effective treatment is educational, not medical. Explicit instruction that shows readers how alphabet letters are related to speech has been shown to be effective.
Once you have identified a reading problem, the next step is to help your child overcome it. With so many "miracle" reading programmes proliferating on the Internet, parents may wonder where to turn. Programmes that merely teach children the shape of words do not give them the skills they need to become independent readers. The most successful programmes focus on strengthening the brain's aptitude to link letters and groups of letters to sounds.
If your child is receiving reading help, make sure his reading programme has a strong phonemic-awareness component and teaches your child strategies for figuring out unfamiliar words. Developing phonological awareness skills using activities such as syllable-count board games and compound-word and rhyme puzzles has enabled many children to meet with reading success.
Effective intervention does more than just stimulate existing neural pathways - it actually rewires the brain. Targeted reading instruction boosts the dyslexic brain's activity in the crucial word-form area. That this improvement persists for at least a year, suggests that the right intervention may help the dyslexic brain lay down the type of reading circuitry found in naturally fluent readers.
If you want to discuss your teachers concerns or organise a psycho-educational assessment for your son, you can contact the Dyslexia Association of Ireland at www.dyslexia.ie or email them at info@dyslexia.ie. Their telephone number is 01-6790275/6
Brian Mooney is president of the Institute of Guidance Counsellors. E-mail questions to bmooney@irish- times.ie
