The Essentials On Adult Dyslexia

Dyslexia can be a very problematic condition that particularly affects a person’s daily living activities. However, it is not one of those well known conditions like cancer, AIDS, and the likes. To understand how dyslexia affects people, specifically adults, you must first understand what dyslexia is, its causes, severity, and prevalence.

What Is Dyslexia?

Dyslexia is basically a condition that presents a person’s difficulty in processing information that is usually related to short-term memory deficiency and visual coordination. If you have this condition, your short-term memory would be particularly weak. It can be either your auditory or visual memory that is affected or both. Due to this, being a dyslexic person, it would be difficult for you to learn the connection between the spoken sound and the written symbol.

It is mainly categorized to be as a learning disability, since it mainly affects the vital areas in which learning is related to. Since auditory and visual skills are needed in learning, dyslexia can make one disabled in this field.

How Severe Can One Be?

The severity and range of the condition can vary widely for dyslexic people. The main problem areas of difficulty would be reading, spelling, numeration, writing, time-keeping and personal organization. The degree of the effect on an individual can be observed from mild spelling and reading difficulties to severe problems on organization or even complete illiteracy. There are no typical cases for dyslexia, since each case can be unique from one another.

Diagnosis

Some people do not even know that they are dyslexic; while there are a huge number of people, who are only diagnosed when they have reached adulthood already. This may be due to the unpopularity of the condition. Sometimes, it can be misdiagnosed too to be as a different condition that may present similar symptoms.

What Are The Causes?

There is no pinpointed cause of dyslexia, even though much research has been conducted to be able to explain its main cause. However, there are some researches that have gathered some relevant findings on the condition. Some neurological research suggests that a person who has this condition may have some abnormality on how his or her brain’s left hemisphere functions. This is relevant since the left hemisphere is the one that controls your lexical system.

Cognitive research, however, in the past years has mainly focused on the possibility that the cause is related to having problems with phonological awareness, which is one’s awareness of specific speech sounds in words. Additionally, there is a speculation that such problems are somewhat related to a specific portion of the brain.

Whatever the cause may be, there appears little doubt that a lot of people having literacy problems really do experience sound insensitivity in different ways. Due to this deficit, reading problems often occurs. What is also obvious is that even though the cause of the problems can be multi-causal and can be different from one person to another, they can still be the main source of intense frustration and depression for any dyslexic person.

Incidence And Prevalence

The estimated incidences of dyslexia can vary greatly every year. It is estimated that it occurs from about to 4-10% of the population. It is also believed that prevalence in males is four times greater than with females.

General Effects In Adulthood

Dyslexia is a condition that is quite hard to recognize. It is also one condition that most people who have it try to hide. Simple tasks like filling in forms, taking phone messages, or even completing timesheets can already be major problems when you have this condition.

Techniques On Managing Dyslexia In The Work Place

Dyslexia can have some effects on you while being in the workplace. Here are some techniques that people with this condition usually do to deal with problems that their condition may bring upon while working.

Write It Down

When organization becomes a problem, writing things down can be beneficial. If you have to manage some work related or personal tasks, you try putting them into writing. By placing them in a sheet of paper, you can be sure that you don’t forget them.

Starting there, you can go get a notebook and designate your tasks to specific days of the week. Make use one page for one whole day. Also, try to allocate your tasks a specific time, in which you have to complete it.

When you are finished with that, place the other remaining tasks in another page. These would be your long-term tasks. Once you complete a task within the day, cross them off the page or try to reorganize what you have written.

If you have some tasks that you do not get to do or finish, then roll them off to the next day. You can also put in reminders and birthdays on the pages. Basically it’s like making a throw away organizer.

If you are a highly visual person that can learn best if you writing things down, then this method can work wonders with you. Additionally, it can give you the feeling of confidence since you have managed your tasks and have written it on paper so you would not forget.

Silence Please

Some dyslexic people only need a quiet environment in order to function and work properly. Finding a quiet place at home or at your workplace may just be the thing you need so that you can gain control and concentration on your work.

Some simply go to their ‘quiet spot’, close their eyes, and starts typing freely ong their computer. This is one way of letting your creative side gush out and take control. If you think of it that way, you wouldn’t have to bear with the endeavors of trying to think about the correct spelling of words.

Directions

If directions are your problem, then you can make use of the landmark method. Here, you notice and observe landmarks to find your way around, instead of using street names. For example, you can find your favorite restaurant by simply remembering that it is beside KFC and McDonalds.

Highlighters

The use of highlighters can prove to be very beneficial, whether you are working or studying. When you are reading books, try to highlight them to mark where you have left off. You can also highlight memos or written instructions that are given to you at work. In this way you can read them without the white glare, which highly disturbs a lot of dyslexics when reading.

Key Point Marking

Whenever you are reading a written document or memo, try to mark the key points so that when you reread them, it can be easier for you. However, be sure that you only write on documents that you are allowed to write on, or else this can be a cause of a big problem for you.

These are just some of the ways on how you can lessen the effect of dyslexia when you are working. A specific technique can be effective to one person, but not to another. Thus, doing some experiment and testing on which techniques are effective for you are needed.

The Breakthrough Of Childhood To Adult Dyslexia

Dyslexia is a learning disability that can affect children greatly during their school years. However, this condition doesn’t only have its effects on childhood but on adulthood too, especially in the workplace. The thing is, unlike in childhood where dyslexia has a great negative effect; in adulthood, the effect can vary from positive to negative.

A Look Back At Childhood Education

The educational methods used today are somewhat limited in regards to teaching students with reading, math and writing problems, the basic literacy skills that a child needs to know. Although most wouldn’t observe this problem, a lot of people with dyslexia are greatly affected by this limitation.

From the very start, the school system is observed to be stacked against dyslexics. This is because a person with dyslexia is "real world" thinker, which means the use of concepts and pictures is the main method to learn, instead of using mental sentences.

Thus, special training is required for them in able to master written language’s basics easily.

A Disability With A Twist

Even though dyslexics have lots of problems with learning, this is not an indicator that they are stupid, unlike what most people think. Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Churchill, Edison, Whoopi Goldberg, Greg Louganis and Walt Disney, were well thought-out to be "dummies" by their classmates, teachers, family and friends, during their first few years of school.

However, one way to look at the situation they were in is that they weren’t really suffering from a learning disability, but instead a teaching disability.

A lot of teachers just do not know the correct and appropriate methods for teaching and presenting information in the way that a dyslexic child can understand. As a consequence, these children are sometimes warehoused into "special ed" classes.

But sometimes, getting into a special ed class can cause the loss of self-esteem. This then becomes the trigger to the syndrome, which makes dyslexia even worse.

Sadly, this kind of attitude is sometimes carried over into adulthood.

Additional confusion, stress, coupled with heavy concentration, can only increase the attention and perceptual problems that the child is already having. The more struggle a dyslexic has, the more hard reading becomes.

Out Of The Cage: Welcome To Adulthood

As a dyslexic, once you get to finish school and start adulthood, life may seem easier for you. In fact, a lot of "learning disabled" people turn out to be highly successful once they are free from the boundaries of school.

With this condition, you may think that you simply have a knack for an activity. What you don’t realize is that this knack actually stems out from the same root as dyslexia -- your ability to mentally combine real world and imaginary images in an intuitive or creative way.

This talent can cause tremendous turmoil with your reading and writing. But when it is used for fields like the arts, sports, engineering, invention, salesmanship, and strategy, it can actually produce wonders!

This breakthrough from childhood to adulthood is really a notable event in the life of a person with dyslexia. More often, they can get their lost self-esteem back since they have found something where they are successful in.

Sadly, not all cases of dyslexia have this kind of pattern. There are times when adulthood comes, the worse the condition gets. However, this mainly depends on the personal outlook of the person. That is why a positive outlook should be promoted.