Hillsborough Community College Dyslexia Discussion

PROMPT:

Dyslexia When most people hear the word dyslexia they think about letters flip-flopping or showing up backward. However, dyslexia is a complex neurologically-based learning disability and the letter flip-flop is not necessarily what happens.
Explain the impairments experienced by individuals diagnosed with dyslexia.
Explain some of the neurological areas that are different in those with dyslexia.
It is reported that some cultures have more incidences of dyslexia. Why is that

MY INITAL POST:Dyslexia often affects the individual’s ability to read. This is because dyslexia is an orthographic processing disorder, and the individual’s ability to read is determined by their ability to sound out the words they are reading (Understood, 2016). Adults or children with dyslexia find it difficult differentiating between letters that can be easily confused, like b and d, or p and q. Individuals with dyslexia have difficulty following a sequence of motions in pictures or words, steps in an instructional course or everyday life and verbal or written directions.
Some of the neurological areas that are different in those with dyslexia are the occipital lobe, cerebellum, and corpus callosum. Research has found that the cerebellum is larger in children with dyslexia (Munzer, Hussain, & Soares, 2020). Due to this, children with dyslexia have a smaller than average corpus callosum and other parts of the brain stem. Different theories help explain why there is a difference in these areas between those with dyslexia and those without it. One theory states that the differences may be caused by poor attentional control, leading to inefficient processing of phonological words. One study found that people with dyslexia showed lower response times for phonemic errors, suggesting the possibility that their attention was not well controlled at those times.
Many factors can contribute to dyslexia, so there are many different reasons why a culture might have more incidences of dyslexia. For example, some children may be born with it, while others might have it caused by a problem in the brain. In some cases, a culture may have more dyslexia because they have less access to treatment or education (Maunsell, 2020). The most significant example of how culture plays a role in dyslexia is comparing Chinese speakers and English speakers. In fact, dyslexia affect Chinese and English speakers differently.

REPLY TO BOTH:

Gabriella: One of the most commonly known symptoms of dyslexia is seeing letters “mixed up” or reversed, but dyslexia causes far more than this. Individuals with dyslexia often struggle greatly in school and work due to issues with reading, writing, and auditory processing. Dyslexia affects the parts of the brain that control and process language (Mayo Clinic, n.d.). It causes lower activity in the parts of the brain that control things like decoding and reading, such as the parietal and occipital lobes (Dyslexia Resource, 2020). There also seems to be more activity in the frontal lobe in people with dyslexia than in those without. It has also been found that there is less gray matter than white matter in the parietal brain in people with dyslexia than those without (Dyslexia Resource, 2020.) There are some symptoms that will begin to appear before a child is school age such as delayed talking, difficulty with learning new words, difficulty remembering rhyming songs or games, and difficulty in forming words correctly. Oftentimes, a child with dyslexia will say things “backward” or reversed. School-aged children typically struggle with spelling, reading, writing, auditory processing, and even avoiding things that involve reading and writing due to how much they struggle with it. Many people with dyslexia also struggle with math and processing numbers. It has also been found that many individuals with dyslexia also have ADHD. Speech therapy has been found to help as well as different approaches to education that is specialized to the individual. Dyslexia is experienced throughout the world but there are certain risk factors such as a family history of learning disabilities, exposure to drugs or alcohol during pregnancy, and lower birth weight. It has also been thought that there is more instances of dyslexia in different cultures due to how different languages are processed in the brain. For example, it is thought that someone who is dyslexic in English may not be dyslexic in Mandarin based on the writing system that is used (Sara Loy, 2019).

Andrea: Dyslexia is a learning disability that causes difficulty reading, pronouncing, or understating what is given. There is a 5% to 10% of individuals that were diagnosed with dyslexia. Studies has shown dyslexia can be caused by stress at a young age, brain injury, stroke, dementia, exposure or consumption of drugs, alcohol, or nicotine during pregnancy, or it can be inherited by genes. Currently there is no specific test or imagining that can properly diagnosed dyslexia. The kind of impairments that are experienced by individuals can vary by age range. Preschool children can have delayed speech development or unable to differentiate between two words that may sound similar to each other or have memorization problems. Elementary to middle school students have difficulty in reading, writing, memorizing, and retelling a storyline. Finally in young adults to adults they can present poor academic skills, difficulty in learning a new language, and difficulty processing or understanding what they written or read. Researchers have studied that some of the neurological areas that are different in individuals with dyslexia has to do an increase of activity in the frontal lobes than in occipital or parietal areas and with the white and grey matter in the brain. The white matter is located deeper in the brain and is responsible for communication for example Phonemic awareness is also known as a decrease of white matter in a dyslexic brain. Grey matter is responsible for processing information. While comparing individuals with dyslexia and those that do not have it, have found a decrease in both white and grey matter in the brain in the left of the parietal area. According to Neurologist there are incidences of dyslexia in some cultures because of the different roots of where the person is from especially if different languages are spoken. During an experiment researchers tested three different people who spoke different languages and concluded they found an irregular orthography in which some combinations of words are the same when pronounced but aren’t the same. This is due to how the brain is wired and how it processes. This was proven due to the research that dyslexia are different in other cultures in where inheritance does not always play in the picture.