What is Dyslexia?


What is Dyslexia?


“Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurological in origin. It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language that is often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction. Secondary consequences may include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experience that can impede growth of vocabulary and background knowledge.”

“Dyslexia” Research Definition
Adopted by IDA Board, November 2002
Adopted by the National Institutes of Health, 2002


An individual with dyslexia may experience deficits in areas of memory storage, sequencing and retrieval. Areas of difficulty can include: remembering information long enough to repeat, manipulate, or store it; retaining or integrating the new material to be able to build on previous knowledge; and retrieving the sequence of multi-step operations. Typically, with dyslexia, there is a wide gap between intelligence and school achievement, which can be hard on self esteem.


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