What is dyslexia

Dyslexia is a specific learning disability, which hinders the learning of literacy skills.

Let’s start by saying what it is not. Dyslexia is no disease. It is not the result of a brain injury or defect. It is not the consequence of somebody’s intellectual level, lack of motivation, emotional disturbance or their surroundings. Dyslexia is a specific learning disability, which hinders the learning of literacy skills.

The basic cause of dyslexia is not yet fully understood and research is still going on. Therefore, there are many different opinions about its causes. After checking different information resources one can conclude that it all happens in the brain. That the cells are structured a bit differently: they are sorted or wired differently. There is also no unanimity about the percentage of dyslexics among the population, so it ranges from 4 to 15%.

Dyslexia runs in families and thus is inheritable. Dyslexia stays with you throughout your life. It’s not something that you outgrow when you become an adult.

The brain is divided in a left and a right hemisphere; the left hemisphere controls arithmetic, language and speech, while the right hemisphere controls artistic and spatial skills, recognizes and expresses emotion and complex imagery.

Dyslexics are making more use of their right brain hemisphere, so they tend to be creative, holistic, visual and intuitive: all great abilities. However, because of the inefficient use of the left hemisphere which controls linear processing there tends to be a problem with literacy skills.

I discovered there is no real unanimity about dyslexia itself, its causes and some of its symptoms; therefore, there is no straight answer as to how to handle it. However, research is still going on.

According to Ronald Davis author of "The Gift of Dyslexia", dyslexia is disorientation and dyslectics think in pictures instead of words.