Dyslexia is a disorder of the ability to read, and dysgraphia is a disorder of writing (in reference books you will find more extensive interpretations, but, keeping in mind the topic of our article, we will prefer minimalistic ones to them, leaving the main thing). These problems affect millions of people, all of whom face difficulties in learning because the current education system does not suit them.
In the post-Soviet space, such diagnoses are rarely made: there is a myth that children with dyslexia and dysgraphia are simply mentally retarded. At best, parents and teachers attribute laziness and poor discipline to them. Even doctors allow themselves to make incorrect statements and can, for example, call a child with a suspected learning disorder a “moron” (the author of these lines has heard something similar addressed to him). Therefore, people with such problems often form an incorrect idea of themselves.
I once studied with a boy who, at the age of 15, had difficulty reading syllables - everyone, including the teachers, laughed at him. And no one even thought that he needed help. It's not surprising that he grew up to be some kind of gopnik.
It is difficult for an ordinary person who easily masters the school curriculum to believe that such a problem really exists and to imagine its scale. It seems something distant and almost illusory. But it is enough to go outside and take a closer look at those who are considered to be “antisocial elements” - and it turns out that among them there are many people with similar disorders and neurological problems (for example, ADHD). Such disorders are poorly diagnosed in our country, therefore, as a rule, everyone who has them does not understand what is happening to them, and often suffers failures in life. The education system, which is focused only on “standard” children who do not have any “deviations,” is also to blame here. Schools indifferently grind down those who do not fit into these standards. Finding themselves unable to obtain even a basic education, some people fall to the bottom of society.
A person with a learning disorder may have above average intelligence and talents that others cannot achieve. But if he does not know about his characteristics and does not understand how they can be corrected and even used to his advantage, this is fraught with:
- daily difficulties in study and work; difficulties in interacting with society (others may consider such people mentally retarded); — psychological problems (regular failures form low self-esteem and often lead to depression).
The prospects for such people are often far from rosy: career problems, low income, etc. Therefore, it is important that they learn about their characteristics as early as possible. And we learned to work with them.
What does dyslexia look like?
For dyslexia (from the Greek dis
- “loss of something, discord” and
lexis
- “speech”) are characterized by difficulties with reading even simple and long-familiar words. Such people require more time and effort to perceive a written text than others. They mix up the letters or read them in reverse. There are also problems with memorization: sometimes dyslexics cannot remember sequences of words and numbers that they just saw in the text.
This learning disorder manifests itself in different ways, but always as a complex of several symptoms. Dyslexia can be diagnosed at an early age if a child:
1) reads or writes words backwards; 2) skips certain words or places in the text; 3) starts speaking late and has difficulty learning new vocabulary; 4) makes repeated errors in pronunciation and writing; 5) changes the letter order when reading; 6) has problems recognizing letters and poorly matches them with sounds; 7) has poorly developed reading skills for his age.
Over time, other characteristic features may appear: a person has difficulty forming complex speech, he is not given new languages, he poorly understands jokes based on wordplay. Dyslexic adults often avoid reading and find workarounds where the ill-fated skill is not needed. Many people don’t even realize that they have any problems.
Dysgraphia and dyslexia – what are they?
A specific impairment of written language is called dysgraphia. Children with this disorder experience serious difficulty writing letters and words, make a significant number of grammatical errors, and cannot correctly display written signs and symbols. No matter how hard they try, their handwriting remains uneven and sloppy, and tasks are completed slowly and with great difficulty. In the absence of a competent approach to such students, in the future this can develop into psychological problems, the development of self-doubt, isolation and depression.
Since writing and reading are interconnected components of one mental process, dysgraphia is very often accompanied by dyslexia. This pathology is associated with the child’s inability to master reading skills. In the presence of such a violation, the student skips or adds extra letters, initial syllables or words, distorts the correct sound of words and reads extremely slowly.
If dysgraphia is diagnosed in almost 25-30% of primary schoolchildren, then dyslexia occurs in approximately 8-10% of students. Disorders can occur both in pairs and independently of each other. As a rule, the first signs of disorders appear between the ages of 6 and 8 years. Pathologies require competent intervention by a speech therapist-speech pathologist, since their uncontrolled progression can be accompanied by dizziness, headaches, and a general deterioration in the child’s physical and psychological condition.
What does dysgraphia look like?
Perhaps the most common symptom of dysgraphia (from the Greek dis
- “loss of something, discord” and
grapho
- “writing”)
-
bad handwriting. Also, errors that cannot be explained by ignorance of grammar are typical for people with this disorder.
Other common symptoms (as with dyslexia, none of these alone are sufficient to warrant a diagnosis):
1) inconsistency of handwriting (a person writes sometimes in italics, sometimes in block letters, sometimes in large letters, sometimes in small letters); 2) some words may break off, merge with neighboring ones, or even “disappear”; 3) letters are often missed or confused (especially if they are similar in shape, like P
and
b
); 4) unusual movements and body position when writing; 5) difficulties with rewriting texts; 6) difficulty expressing one’s own thoughts on paper.
The reasons for poor handwriting in dysgraphics have not been precisely determined: perhaps the culprit is poorly developed fine motor skills, perhaps a dislike of writing (as a rule, people do not like those activities in which they are weak).
Problems with the perception of sounds and letters that are characteristic of dyslexia can also affect writing, which makes it difficult to distinguish between the two diagnoses. First, it is not uncommon for both disorders to occur in the same person. Secondly, much depends on the medical definitions of these terms - and they can vary from country to country, from system to system, from doctor to doctor. Some, for example, call dysgraphia only problems associated with insufficiently developed hand motor skills when writing.
About the nature of disorders
The causes leading to dyslexia and dysgraphia have not yet been fully identified. But most researchers name the special structure of the brain and genetics among the two main ones.
“Learning disorders can be associated with the circumstances of a child’s birth, genetic factors, as well as environmental characteristics,” explains psychologist Inna Pasechnik.
The hypothesis about the hereditary nature of such phenomena is confirmed by a number of facts: brothers and sisters in the same family often experience the same problems with oral and written speech; about half of the parents of dyslexics themselves have similar disorders; specific genes have been found in such people; differences were found in the structure and activity of the brain in the areas responsible for correlating sounds with letters, as well as recognizing written words.
Dysgraphia has been less studied, but genetic factors are also considered here. This disorder is often associated with problems in working memory.
Dyslexia and dysgraphia - these terms have recently come into use, but refer to two very long-standing and common problems.
What it is?
DYSLEXIA is a reading development disorder.
DYGRAPHIA is a disorder in the development of writing skills.
Both deviations arise due to a decrease in the activity of areas of the brain responsible for understanding oral and written speech, abstract rules of language, and the ability to write and read.
Simply put, it is a reading and writing disorder at the neurophysiological level.
How do dysgraphia and dyslexia manifest?
Dysgraphia
spelling, calligraphy, handwriting, working with dysgraphia
The child cannot remember the spelling of letters.
Incorrect grip of the handle, which cannot be corrected.
The letters are uneven, abrupt, more like drawings. The child rearranges the letters, misses some or adds extra ones.
Makes a large number of mistakes in writing from time to time, “working on mistakes” does not give results.
Does not notice his own mistakes and cannot correct them.
Does not know how to apply the known rules of the native language in practice.
May not use capital letters or punctuation at all.
The handwriting is uneven, jumpy, and difficult to read.
Dyslexia
The child pronounces letters and words incorrectly.
Cannot combine sounds into syllables and then into words.
When reading, he rearranges words and misses some.
Does not remember and/or does not understand the text read, cannot retell it in sufficient detail (however, the reading speed may be within normal limits!).
The child uses and agrees words incorrectly (confuses gender, number, endings of words).
Why weren’t these diagnoses observed in children before?
The problem of dyslexia and dysgraphia has existed for a very long time. However, previously this was explained by the child’s lack of diligence or his behavior: too lazy, doesn’t try, “techie” and other similar formulations.
And only relatively recently have the causes of these deviations been identified, which the child himself is not able to eliminate.
What are the effects of dyslexia and dysgraphia?
Distortion of words when writing and reading significantly inhibits the perception of information. Dysgraphia leads to the fact that the child writes slower than everyone else in the class and cannot decipher his own handwriting. Of course, these are difficulties of a psychological nature: due to constant mistakes, criticism and bad grades, the child withdraws into himself, loses interest in studies, and perhaps falls behind in the program. And as a result - self-doubt and underestimation of one’s own abilities and capabilities.
However, dyslexia and dysgraphia are not associated with intellectual deficits - the child’s mental abilities are completely intact.
You might be surprised, but quite a few famous people have dysgraphia and/or dyslexia. Among them: Pablo Picasso, Albert Einstein, H.K. Andersen, Agatha Christie, Walt Disney, John Kennedy, Vladimir Mayakovsky and many others.
Is it possible to get rid of dyslexia and dysgraphia?
The most important thing in this situation is timely diagnosis, which will allow these ailments to be corrected as much as possible. This flaw cannot be completely overcome, but its negative consequences can be compensated.
In addition to adjusting the educational program for dyslexia and dysgraphia, it is important to train the neural networks of the brain, namely:
· Train memory and thinking
· Develop mindfulness
· Develop fine motor skills
· Reinforce abstract concepts with visual images
· Develop your child’s vocabulary
· Train his speech skills
Mental arithmetic is an ideal tool for creating and strengthening new neural connections for a child. It engages a huge number of brain areas in a playful way and trains them.
In childhood, the human brain is much more flexible and plastic. It creates new neural networks easier and stronger than the adult brain. Therefore, the sooner work begins to strengthen neural connections, the more likely it is to prevent and compensate for existing disorders.
Diagnostics
In Western countries, a child suspected of having dyslexia or dysgraphia may be referred to a school psychologist, neurologist, or regular pediatrician. In Russia, most specialists are not trained to work with such problems, but here you can also find psychologists, neuropsychologists and neurophysiologists who deal with this issue.
“It’s better to identify symptoms early. It’s good if the child is diagnosed by a neuropsychologist before going to school. Learning disorders are predictable. If we examine a person at the age of 6, we will be able to predict his problems at school,” says Irina Pasechnik.
Who is at risk for developing dysgraphia and dyslexia?
The possibility of developing these pathologies is significantly higher in those children who:
- do not pronounce sounds clearly, articulate sluggishly;
- have general speech underdevelopment and have not attended speech therapy classes;
- write with the left hand or write with the right after they have been retrained;
- grow up in families where they speak different languages;
- start learning to write and read too early;
- went to school early and immediately started learning a foreign language;
- have attention deficit disorder, hyperactivity disorder or mental retardation.
Compatibility
As already mentioned, dyslexia and dysgraphia are often a complex disorder that is accompanied by a number of other characteristic problems (in medical parlance this is called “comorbidity”):
1) approximately 40% of people with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) are dyslexics;
2) dyscalculia (difficulties in learning arithmetic);
3) autism spectrum disorders.
If we are not talking about medical conditions, then for some reason dysgraphia and dyslexia are often combined with ambidexterity (when a person can use both hands equally well) and homosexuality. According to the study, 7.9% of gay men have difficulty reading (versus 1-3% of the population average).
Why do dysgraphia and dyslexia occur?
Despite the significant work done by specialists in studying this issue, today the reliable causes of the development of dysgraphia and dyslexia remain not fully understood. However, some information is still available. According to scientists, writing and reading disorders can occur as a result of:
- hereditary and genetic predisposition;
- improper development of the brain at various stages of growth;
- imbalance between the cerebral hemispheres;
- pathologies that occur during pregnancy or fetal injuries;
- development of somatic diseases;
- infections affecting the nervous system;
- presence of functional hearing or vision impairment;
- insufficient work on the child’s intellectual development;
- the presence of speech defects, incorrect pronunciation of sounds and words;
- small number of speech contacts;
- improperly formed visual analysis skills;
- teaching writing and reading skills too early in the absence of a child’s psychological readiness for this;
- excessive demands on the child, incorrect pace and teaching methods.
What can help a person with learning disabilities?
First of all, you need to learn self-advocacy - the ability to defend your own interests. If you find yourself in a new job or study, you need to be able to communicate to others about your characteristics and needs in such a way as to achieve maximum mutual understanding.
For example, a person with dyslexia or dysgraphia should be given more time for tasks that require the use of reading and writing skills. While studying, you can ask the teacher for his notes. In educational institutions of Western countries there are special programs for people with such disorders.
Developing fine motor skills can help with dysgraphia. You also need to practice expressing your thoughts on paper and check your spelling and syntax every time.
“Most people, as they grow up, adapt to the deficits they have. If a person understands that something is not working out for him, he learns to do it differently - for example, he uses only those words that he is confident in spelling,” says Irina Pasechnik.
As we age, our brain plasticity decreases. Therefore, according to Pasechnik, correction of learning disorders will no longer be as effective as in childhood, but improvements are still possible. The psychologist recommends activities like martial arts and yoga: “Such activities require complex coordination, due to which they develop the interaction of different areas of the brain and are very helpful not only for the body, but also, oddly enough, for the head.”
Physical activity can really be beneficial. Dyslexia is often associated with the cerebellum, the area of the brain responsible for coordinating movements. In the UK, a study conducted an experiment in which participants (children) performed simple physical exercises for months. As a result, the subjects improved not only their motor skills, but also their language abilities and made progress in reading.
Some scientists, such as Yale University professor Sally Shaywitz, believe that exercise cannot cure dyslexia, but it can help people with the problem feel more confident and combat anxiety.
The most important thing when you have a learning disorder is to play to your strengths. What are the advantages to look for and how to use them?
How to help a child with dysgraphia or dyslexia?
Parents will not be able to cope with this problem on their own. In such situations, it is necessary to contact a qualified speech therapist-defectologist. Disorders can be corrected, but the effect of working with a specialist will largely depend on the timely detection of the problem. With the right approach, a child who has such defects identified before starting school will reach the norm in 80-85% of cases. When dysgraphia or dyslexia is detected in grades 1-2, success is visible in 70% of students. If parents turn to a specialist when the student has already completed primary school, only in 35-40% of cases the specialist manages to normalize reading and writing skills. In other cases, long courses of classes are required to achieve the norm.
The key goal of classes with a speech therapist is for the child to acquire information about how sounds are pronounced correctly and how they are reflected in writing. For this purpose, various speech games are used, and a visual visualization system is also used.
In this case, close cooperation between the speech therapist and parents is extremely important. Deficiencies caused by dysgraphia and dyslexia should be eliminated not only in speech therapy classes, but also at home. Only comprehensive work to correct them will achieve positive results.
Publication date: 03/04/2019. Last modified: 01/13/2020.
Benefits of Dyslexia
For the species Homo sapiens, reading is a relatively recent invention (it appeared along with writing around the 4th millennium BC). During this lesson, our thinking “switches” to a special operating mode. If adults who are far from literature are taught to read, their brains change in a special way. This is shown by the research of Stanislav Diana, a famous French neuroscientist. During the experiment, subjects lost
ability to process certain types of visual information - for example, they became worse at perceiving faces and chessboards.
The skill of reading competes with our other skills, that is, it has its price: you are strong in either one or the other.
The famous artist Maritz Escher is the author of numerous visual paradoxes. He depicted “impossible figures”—three-dimensional objects that are an optical illusion and cannot exist in reality. His famous lithograph "Waterfall", for example, has the structure of a Penrose triangle.
A group of psychologists studied people's ability to recognize such figures. It turned out that dyslexics did much better than others. The researchers hypothesized that this is because they tend to process visual-spatial information not locally (piece by piece), but rather holistically.
So there is a fair amount of truth to the myths that portray people with learning disabilities in a favorable light. For example, there is a rumor on the English-language Internet that more than 50% of NASA employees are dyslexic. “Not true,” NASA tweeted, “but they [dyslexics] are super smart.”
People who have trouble reading actually have some “trump cards” in sciences such as astrophysics.
Researchers have found a link between this disorder and the ability to process information useful in astronomy. For example, dyslexics have outperformed others at finding black holes!
In another study, the authors compared students' ability to remember blurry images that looked like X-rays—and dyslexics again excelled. So their talents can be useful in medicine and in many other fields.
Richard Rogers, the famous architect and one of the creators of the Pompidou Center, is dyslexic. By his own admission, he could not read until the age of 11, and was unable to learn poetry or do homework. They called him stupid. Even as a child, Rogers wanted to throw himself off a roof.
“Dyslexia, however, helped me realize that when people said, 'You're not
you can do it!“ - it was not worth paying attention.
“I don’t take ‘ no
’ too seriously,” Richard said.
He believes that dyslexia allows you to take a broader view of things, forget the “normal” ways of working and turn everything upside down.
The attention of people with a reading disorder is indeed distributed wider than the “norm”. For example, at a cocktail party, a “regular” person will focus on “central” sounds, while a dyslexic person will focus on those in the periphery.
Although the issue has not been sufficiently studied, it is clear that this disorder is associated with features in the functioning of the brain: dyslexia allows you to better see the picture as a whole, rather than in particular, to discover something exceptional and non-trivial, rather than banal and lying on the surface.
Therefore, such people are more likely to think outside the box. American professor Thomas West explains in his book that “out-of-the-box thinking” has always distinguished dyslexics.
When we call some features a disorder, we must remember that this definition is conditional. The same trait can be both a “violation” and an advantage – it all depends on the context and specific tasks. Dyslexia did not prevent molecular biologist Carol Greider and biophysicist Jacques Duboche from becoming Nobel Prize laureates. So no one should feel limited in their studies or career.
Many “disorders” are a normal part of neurodiversity. Our characteristics and differences serve as the driving force of progress, and if everyone had the same brains, humanity would stop in its development.
People are different - and society needs each of them.
Dangerous words - dyslexia and dysgraphia
“Dangerous words “dyslexia” and “dysgraphia””
Many parents are faced with the fact that their inquisitive and quite intelligent children experience serious difficulties in mastering reading and writing. Neither numerous homework assignments, nor repetition and explanations, nor rewards and punishments help solve the problem. Do not rush to scold your children, accusing them of laziness, inattention and restlessness. You shouldn’t suspect teachers of not paying enough attention to your child. The problem is that some children suffer from specific reading and writing disorders, dyslexia and dysgraphia, and they urgently need specialist help. What is dyslexia and dysgraphia. Dyslexia is a disorder of the reading process that occurs as a result of underdevelopment or dysfunction of certain areas of the brain, responsible for translating sounds into letters and letters into sounds. Almost always, one of the consequences of dyslexia is dysgraphia. Dysgraphia (from the Greek “graphio” - to write, to depict) is a persistent violation of writing, not associated with ignorance of grammatical rules, but due to underdevelopment or partial damage to those brain mechanisms that ensure the complex process of writing. Dyslexia and dysgraphia can occur in children with normal intellectual development, intact oral speech, and full vision and hearing. The insufficient development of certain mental functions hardly manifests itself in everyday life, but creates serious obstacles in mastering reading and writing. These functions are formed in different periods of preschool childhood. Their structures are intricately intertwined. A failure in the formation of one function may cause a delay in the formation of another. If already in preschool age the formation of some function was delayed, then at school this will manifest itself when reading or writing in the form of specific errors. To master writing, it is not enough just to see the world around you (trees, people, objects); you must have vision for letters, which allows you to remember and reproduce their outlines. “And if a child, by the time he enters school, has not sufficiently developed visual-spatial concepts and visual analysis and synthesis, then he will not be able to properly master the writing of letters and will confuse them in writing. “And if a child does not have sufficiently developed phonemic hearing, which allows him to understand speech, catch the shades of what is said, distinguish one sound from another, he is not able to distinguish similar sounds, as a result, he will inevitably make letter substitutions in writing. Having heard a sound, he is not able to quickly represent it in the form of a letter. That is why mastering literacy is difficult for such children. Children suffering from dyslesia and dysgraphia often have problems with spatial orientation. They are characterized by decreased performance, increased fatigue, memory impairment (especially auditory memory), and difficulties in behavior and communication. Almost all such children have problems with blood circulation in the blood vessels of the brain. A child suffering from dyslexia and dysgraphia realizes that he cannot cope with what is easy for his classmates. Failure at school and misunderstanding on the part of parents and teachers can lead to serious changes in his psyche. With each failure, he believes in himself less and less, gradually becoming silent, shy, and uncommunicative. Fearing ridicule, the child tries to avoid going to school under various pretexts. The other extreme is resentment towards everyone and everything, irritability, lack of restraint, outbursts of anger, unmotivated aggression, conflicts with teachers. Causes of dyslexia and dysgraphia. — Immaturity of certain mental functions, disruption of interhemispheric interaction, which is a consequence of many reasons (adverse factors during pregnancy, trauma, stress, prolonged or rapid labor, surgical delivery, birth trauma). — Diseases of the mother during pregnancy also have an impact (toxicosis, cardiovascular pathologies, renal failure, Rh-conflict situation). — Another cause of dyslexia is considered to be fetal hypoxia, a lack of oxygen during intrauterine development. — As well as various diseases and injuries of the child’s central nervous system in early childhood. — A number of scientists believe that a hereditary factor plays a certain role in the occurrence of dyslexia and dysgraphia, when immaturity of certain brain structures is passed on to a child from close relatives. In families in which parents or close relatives suffered from dyslexia, the likelihood of dyslexia in children is 30% higher. At-risk groups. The likelihood of dyslexia and dysgraphia is higher in - left-handers and right-handers retrained from left-handers, - children with special needs who did not attend speech therapy groups, - children whose families speak two or more languages, - children with sluggish articulation who do not clearly pronounce sounds, - children whose parents strive to teach their child to read as early as possible, - children who went to school too early and started learning a foreign language, - children who have been diagnosed by a neurologist with MMD (minimal cerebral dysfunction), ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) or ZPR. Speech therapists and specialists recommend that parents be wary if a preschooler has difficulty distinguishing and speaking sounds, has difficulty learning poetry, and cannot learn to tie shoelaces and fasten buttons. How to recognize dyslexia and dysgraphia? All reading and writing errors are specific, typical and persistent. If a child encounters errors in reading and writing that, as it seems to you, are similar to specific ones, but they are rare or even isolated, then these are most likely “physiological” errors that naturally occur in children when mastering reading and writing, or the result overwork, inattention. A child has dyslexia if he has difficulty remembering and confuses letters when reading, constantly replaces similar-sounding sounds (S-Z, Sh-Zh, Sh-S, T-D) or letters with similar spellings (P-T, B -V, Kh-Zh), - reads very slowly, intensely, syllable by syllable, often monotonously, makes many mistakes, - misses letters (brand - mara, jacket - kurka), syllables (milk - mocha, path - dozhka), prepositions , - replaces words with others, similar in letter composition, but different in meaning (bogatyrs - rich, therefore - then), - replaces or rearranges letters and syllables (duck - tuka, ditch - kavana), - does not read the correct endings of words or distorts him (it is said - said), - changes the case endings of nouns (opened the window, from under the leaves), - incorrectly agrees in gender between nouns and adjectives or pronouns (cheerful girl, washing dress), - tries to guess the word from the first few letters, - poorly understands the meaning of what he read, cannot tell what he just read. Reading for a dyslexic is hard work; he gets physically tired from this process, not understanding the content. But he understands and remembers the same information by ear much easier. Now let's look at the student's notebook. The presence of dysgraphia is indicated by the following errors: - omission of letters and syllables (upala-upla, butterfly-batchka, huge city - huge proud), - distortion of words (horse - lies down, skates - cunnilingus, when hunting - to die), - failure to complete the spelling words and letters (grows - grows, mouse - mouse), - rearrangement of letters and syllables (apple - yabkolo, fruits - fruits), - adding extra letters (puddle - lulzha, amicably - amicably), - replacement of consonants (potatoes - kartovel, hollow - tublo, drying - shuski), - continuous writing of prepositions, separate prefixes, when the prefix resembles a preposition, conjunction or pronoun (in the city, in the bed, I'm sleepy) - division of one word into two (vederko - vederko, game - and gra ), - inability to indicate the softness of consonants in writing (ball - mach, skates - skates), - a mixture of letters similar in spelling T - P, B - D, I - U (pulled - kicked, ripples - ryadip, fly - mikha) . - turning letters in the other direction (“mirror” writing) B, V, E, Z..., - skipping rare letters: B, E. A child suffering from dysgraphia does not notice the margin and continues to write to the very edge of the sheet, to the end of the sentence “moves” off the lines, transfers words haphazardly, often does not leave spaces between words, connecting two words into one, does not put a period at the end of a sentence and continues to write the next one with a small letter. People with dysgraphia have very poor handwriting; their words seem to crawl on top of each other. Children with dysgraphia and dyslexia are reluctant to complete tasks in the Russian language. They have a hard time reading, retelling, exposition, and especially dictations. Who will help the child? Dyslexia and dysgraphia can be corrected, but its effectiveness depends on the degree of the disorder and on the timeliness of parents turning to specialists. Statistics show that the sooner a problem is identified and help is provided, the faster and more effectively it will be solved. Dyslexics, identified in preschool age, with proper training in 85% of cases reach the normal level. If the diagnosis is made in grades 1-2, this percentage drops to 70%, and in grade 3 - to 60%, at the end of primary school - only 30-35%. Currently, many kindergartens employ speech therapists. They conduct screening tests to determine which children are at high risk of impairment. If your child was offered to attend a speech therapy group, but for one reason or another you refused, know that problems at school cannot be avoided! When a child learns to read and write, an experienced teacher quickly notices the first signs of dyslexia and dysgraphia in the child and will recommend that parents undergo examination by specialists - a speech therapist or speech pathologist. Consultation with a psychologist is also recommended. During the examination, deficiencies in the child’s general, speech and mental development are determined. Then work is organized to correct them, forms and methods of corrective influence are selected, and recommendations are given to parents regarding activities with the child at home. Tips for parents: If you have not found a speech therapist or for some reason the child cannot attend special classes, parents need to study the special classes themselves. programs, corrective exercises to solve the child’s problems. The main thing is that you have the desire to spend 1 hour a day working with your child. A lot of literature is now being published on the correction of dyslexia and dysgraphia. Thanks to the Internet, you can get advice from experienced speech therapists, and on a large number of communities and forums, communicate with concerned parents of children with similar problems. What should parents do? The main thing is to be patient and remember that these violations are not a sign of a child’s inferiority. he can't read or write better yet. He needs help, and if he studies persistently under your guidance, he will be able to master reading and writing.
Memo for parents
What needs to be done: - help your child break a large homework into several small ones, so that he does it not in one sitting, but with a break for rest - since dyslexics and dysgraphics, as a rule, perceive oral speech well, this will be a significant help in the child’s mastery of Adult family members can provide new material on other subjects by reading the given material out loud to him - never compare your child with other children, compare him yourself at the previous stage - your child benefits from activities that develop fine motor skills and activate the work of different parts of the brain: drawing, cutting out of paper, creating applications from cereals (beans, peas, nut shells), laying out patterns from mosaics, matches, modeling - language games will help your child hear individual sounds better (inventing words with one letter, choosing rhymes for words, reading in a whisper and slowly pure words, tongue twisters, proverbs, sayings), - ask the child to guess the letters that you write on his back or palm, or when he feels plastic letters or molded from plasticine, cut out of sandpaper, - teach the child to print on computer, this will help him develop motor memory, and thanks to the Word text program, he will see which word he typed incorrectly - make sure that the child follows a daily routine, it is especially important that he goes to bed at the same time and woke up. Teach him to massage the cervical and occipital areas with a hard towel in the morning and evening, this will activate brain activity - try to alternate the child’s intellectual and verbal stress with physical and active games. Walk with your child more often, at this time the brain is saturated with oxygen and its performance improves. What not to do: - If a child does not read well, do not punish him with reading. Read along with him. You can take turns, in chorus, 1 sentence at a time. For shared reading, choose books with short stories, large print, and lots of pictures. — Do not torment your child with endless writing of dictations and crazy cheating of tests, even if a specialist advises you to do so. Mechanically performing exercises does not give a positive result. - Don't try to fix all the errors at once. If your goal is to teach your child to write without mistakes, then don’t pay attention to ugly handwriting for now. — Don’t try to increase your reading speed. - Don’t get annoyed, don’t scold, and especially don’t punish the child if he makes a mistake. This will not help correct dyslexia and dysgraphia, and will completely discourage the desire to learn. But you shouldn’t praise without a reason either. In between, many parents complain about the lack of free time. But many qualities and abilities of a child can be developed in the meantime. And the development of phonemic perception, sound-letter analysis, memory, attention, thinking - all this can be done in any environment, you just have to show your imagination. “It’s very convenient to work on speech development in between times.” When you and your child (coming from school, store, clinic), read poems, name objects and generalize them into groups, developing auditory attention. Ask the child to be silent for 1 minute without explaining the reason, and then ask what he heard at that time, what sounds, voices. — It’s useful to come up with words that begin with a certain sound. The sound can be selected in the middle or at the end of a word. Play the game “On the contrary” (selection of antonyms). - While walking or doing other household chores, play “Chain” - making up words based on the last sound of the previous word. Words can be selected on a specific topic. — While driving a car, ask your child to name everything he sees outside the window. This develops the child’s vocabulary and improves sound pronunciation. — When you are going to bake pies or cookies, give your child a piece of dough so that he can make letters out of it. Ask them to find objects on the shelf with the given sound. — You are doing the cleaning, the child is hovering nearby. Invite him to name at least 10 objects with a certain sound. -While doing household chores, listen with your child to recordings of fairy tales, poems performed by actors and readers whose diction is impeccable. Try to do everything to make your child’s life easier, so that his eyes light up with the success he has achieved, so that a smile appears on his face more often. This is your child, and only you can best help him if you want!!!
