Dyslexia in adults and children is a mental illness that manifests itself in the form of problems encountered in learning to read or in its complete impossibility. Sometimes it can be accompanied by disorientation in space or in time. At the same time, pathology does not affect the general intelligence of a person or his level of education.
Dyslexia in adults may not manifest itself very clearly. Moreover, people are not at all dangerous to others. Their difference will be that they supposedly look at the whole world from their individual reality. Such people are incredibly successful in creativity or in science. Vivid examples of the manifestation of the disease and at the same time success in creativity can be the famous actors Salma Hayek or Tom Cruise.
However, in medicine there is no such a real diagnosis as dyslexia in adults and children. Pathology belongs to the group of diseases that are united by one common problem for everyone - delay in psycho-speech development.
Interesting Facts
For the first time such a concept as dyslexia was used in 1887 by an ophthalmologist from Germany R. Berlin. Since that time, you can find a lot of interesting facts about children who did not succumb to literacy at all. For many years, experts believed that the whole essence of the problem lies in poor eyesight. Only after almost 100 years, scientists came to the conclusion that there is a wrong perception, and then the brain processes the information received during training.
Quite often, along with dyslexia, other mental disorders develop in adults. More often than usual, alalia occurs - underdeveloped speech, provided that the hearing is normal, aphasia - the previously formed speech disappears due to many factors, dysarthria - there is a violation in the mobility of those organs that are responsible for speech. That is why an adult can simultaneously experience several different psychological deviations. As a rule, the diagnosis of "dyslexia" is made in childhood.
If the problem is found at an early stage of development, then the chances of correcting the violation are quite high. But sometimes you may encounter the fact that an adult already seeks help from doctors. The most complex process is the ability of the human brain to distinguish between letters and sounds, then to connect letters into words, words into sentences. In adults, in most cases, this process is violated. In such a situation, the treatment of dyslexia in adults will be very difficult and lengthy. However, experts do not give any guarantee that it will be successful.
Causes of Dyslexia
To date, scientists identify only a few reasons for the development of such a problem as dyslexia. The main ones include:
- Human hereditary predisposition.
- During the perinatal period, a variety of infectious diseases can affect the mother who has been ill (herpes or rubella).
- Intoxication of alcohol or medication.
- Anemia while bearing a child.
- Lingering labor, asphyxia of the baby.
- Fetal manipulation, which led to minor damage to the brain.
- Immediately after birth, abnormal brain development can be affected by traumatic brain injuries that are too serious for the baby (flu, polio, measles).
- If, after birth, they have little verbal communication, are not engaged enough, or, conversely, the load on the brain is too high and does not correspond to age, then the brain begins to develop incorrectly.
Types of Dyslexia
There are only two types of mental deviation.
- Literal, in which a child or an adult does not understand letters well.
- Verbal, which is characterized by difficulty in reading words.
Forms of Mental Disorder
Conventionally, experts divide all six forms of the disease into two groups. One group includes deviations that are directly related to the insufficient development of speech functions. They can be: phonemic, agramatic, semantic.
The second group includes those forms that are directly related to mental disorders: optical, mnestic, tactile.
First group
It is possible to notice the phonemic form at a fairly early age, when the child learns to read. The main characteristics are substitution, confusion or omissions of letters in words and words in a sentence. A child can unknowingly swap syllables or sounds.
In the case of a semantic form, an adult does not understand the meaning of those words, phrases, or text that he has read. After some time, begins to read the syllables again.
In the presence of an agrammatic form, an adult constantly confuses endings, tenses of verbs, incorrectly forms the number of pronouns.
Second group
The mnestic form is especially common. In most cases, manifestations of mnestic dyslexia become noticeable in children during reading instruction. At this age, such a phenomenon is considered to be the norm. If the child will not understand the letters even further, up to adulthood, then we can talk about the presence of a mental disorder. The main characteristic of deviation is considered a violation in the association between the visual form of the letter and the way it is pronounced.
In the case of the optical form, an adult can read from left to right, replace letters that are written almost identically, slide off the line directly during reading.
Tactile dyslexia is most often found in people who have poor vision. They can skip words, distort the meaning of what they read, replace letters that are graphically similar to each other.
What do all adult dyslexics have in common?
Common to absolutely all adult dyslexics will be such characteristics as difficulties in writing words, they can very quickly process verbal information. Regardless of the form of dyslexia in an adult, cognitive weakness will always develop along with a mental disability. Due to the fact that the brain cannot fully distinguish between different sounds or combinations, bind sounds into words, strong anxiety begins to develop. There is also confusion, because it is very difficult to explain your thoughts, which leads to the launch of the stress mechanism.
Symptoms of dyslexia in an adult
We can say that a person has dyslexia if he:
- Misunderstands the meaning of words.
- Cannot connect proposals.
- It has a minimum vocabulary.
- Pronounces sounds, letters incorrectly, or skips them directly while reading.
- It is difficult to understand the facial expressions of people around.
- While reading, a headache, severe fatigue, or even tearfulness appear.
- Serious problems with calligraphy.
- There is confusion in the sequence of definitions (it cannot say exactly what year or day, time of day, etc.).
- Strong distraction, very poor memory.
- While reading a word, he guesses more than he reads.
- Does not remember or understand the text that has just been read.
- He reads very slowly, often in syllables.
- While writing a simple text or writing it off, it makes a huge amount of mistakes.
- Poorly remembers names, which does not allow to fully work.
- Such people are very irritable and emotional - attacks of unjustified tearfulness, less often aggression, can occur.
- A person is poorly oriented in space, coordination of movements may be disturbed.
- There is a pronounced sense of justice.
- Such people wear only a digital watch.
- It may be unusual to hold a pen while writing text.
- Due to the fact that what has been said is not perceived by ear, it distorts the pronunciation of the words heard.
All these symptoms of dyslexia in adults cannot occur simultaneously in one person. Most often, only a part of them is present, so ordinary people will not particularly notice any deviations.
How is dyslexia diagnosed?
Before you figure out how to treat dyslexia in adults, you need to diagnose this disorder. First of all, you should contact a speech therapist. He will conduct a diagnosis, which includes recognition of letters, sounds, whether a person can distinguish graphically similar characters. After this, it will already be possible to make a diagnosis or, conversely, to refute it.
How is dyslexia treated and corrected?
The most popular option for the correction of dyslexia in adults are classes with a speech therapist. Depending on the present form of dyslexia in a person, classes will also differ.
Also, drug-type therapy is used, which consists in taking vitamins from group B, omega-3 fatty acids. If, along with the signs of dyslexia in adults, some other diseases are present, more serious medications are prescribed.
Sometimes hippotherapy or dolphin therapy can be used for treatment. Experts have proved that when a person communicates with these animals, his mood rises noticeably, he becomes more calm and optimistic. Also a great option would be breathing or motor gymnastics. Doctors recommend attending swimming or gymnastics classes. Regular massage courses are good.
An important role in the treatment of dysgraphia and dyslexia in adults is played by social adaptation. With the help of modern gadgets, you can remember the necessary information and, if necessary, check the correctness of the written text.
If you are thinking about how to correct dyslexia in adults, then you should know about the incredibly effective technique developed by Ronald Davis. He suggests, to some extent, "restarting" the brain and looking at the world with different eyes, starting to fill in the gaps in memory to get rid of distraction or disorientation.
Prevention
In order not to resort to the diagnosis of dyslexia, it is necessary to prevent this disorder. The main condition for prevention is the earliest possible identification of the problem. It is necessary to try to reduce the incidence, to ensure that the child is not injured. In addition, even during pregnancy, a woman should carefully follow all the recommendations of a doctor and monitor her health. If a problem is found, treatment can only begin after classes with a psychologist.
If you pay attention to the signs of dyslexia in time, then by a more mature age you can correct its manifestations, and an adult will not be any different from other people.