Psychology Dyslexia Research Paper

Dyslexia in Students

There are ways to ease the learning disability dyslexia and make earning an education more accessible to the high number of students in the world who have this disability. Up to 14% of students in elementary school have some sort of reading disability, the most common of which is dyslexia. I grew up with a brother with severe dyslexia and with a mild case of my own. For my brother, it was so severe that he did not finish high school and dropped out his senior year. For me it was a lot easier but I still have a very hard time reading. Words and letters float around on pages and screens which make it very hard to do homework and read.

What is Dyslexia?

Dyslexia is defined as an impaired ability to read and other abilities related to language yet it does not affect their Intelligence quotient. Dyslexia has always been hard to define because of three main reasons, the first of which is that dyslexia is unobservable by those without the disability, second, it has a very broad spectrum, such as people who have an easier than me to read, and people who have letters moving everywhere, and third, because it is unobservable, people often do not know how to define its symptoms, yet most people agree that its most reoccurring symptoms are not being able to read because letters float whenever the person is reading. Some signs of dyslexia in children include trouble learning to speak, trouble learning letters and their sounds, having a hard time memorizing, reading to slow to comprehend, and being unable to spell. Students who have these problems do not always have dyslexia, and testing of language and mathematical skills may help identify a diagnosis of dyslexia.

How Can Dyslexia be treated

Dyslexia is a lifelong struggle for those who have it, but there are some ways that it can be eased. If a student has this condition, early identification, and having proper help from tutors, and teachers helps the student succeed. Children with dyslexia need a strong support system, starting at home. If a student has a strong support group of parents, teachers, friends, and tutors that understand how they can help the student, then that student will be more likely to succeed.

The learning styles that would work best for students like this are usually multi-sensory. Usually in schools students are given modified assignments, and are given extra time to complete their assignments. Some schools will give their students books on tape, or have an oral test given instead of a written test. Teachers need to view a dyslexic student as a person, not just a disorder, and teach them with their own specific strengths and help them work on their own weaknesses just as any other students. Once a student finds an area he/she excels at, then that student will be more likely to succeed in what they try to do to reach the goals that they set for themselves in regard to what they want to succeed at.

Research Methods

There was a study done at Yale, where students from the same school, and all of whose primary language was English were taken in to do tests in grades two or four, and in grades nine or ten. They had each student complete three reading assessments (Letter and word identification, word attack, and passage comprehension), and a Full Scale IQ test. Students with a reading cluster score of 90 were identified as poor readers. Those of which their IQ stayed consistent with the other students but reading comprehension became stagnate were then identified as students with dyslexia.

Positive and Negative Aspects of Your Topic

Dyslexia is a hard thing to overcome and create positives out of. The earlier it is caught the easier it is to help the person, but here we will look at some disadvantages of dyslexia. First students have trouble with basic skills that most people take advantage of such as talking, reading, writing, and connecting letters and words to sounds. Some basic things that make life a bit harder for dyslexics are that they often become disoriented when trying to concentrate, they often have trouble learning to tie shoes and how to distinguish left from right.

Now the flip side. There are some things that students with dyslexia are often great at. As was brought up earlier, dyslexics are people too, they have weaknesses, yes, but they also have amazing strengths as well and can often do better in certain subjects than those without. Students with dyslexia often are more creative than those without. They can think in pictures instead of words, and can perceive in multiple dimensions and don’t see things