- Dyslexia is the most common learning disability. Individuals with this medical condition have difficulty in the areas of language processing.
- 1 in 5 people suffer from dyslexia.
- About 70 to 85 percent of children who are placed in special education for learning disabilities are dyslexic.
- Dyslexia does not reflect an overall defect in language, but a localized weakness within the phonologic module of the brain (where sounds of language are put together to form words or break words down into sounds).
- People with dyslexia are usually more creative and have a higher level of intelligence.
- Those with dyslexia use only the right side of the brain to process language, while non-dyslexics use three areas on the left side of the brain to process language.
- Children have a 50 percent chance of having dyslexia if one parent has it. And a 100 percent chance if both parents have it.
- Dyslexia ranges from mild to severe. Around 40 percent of people with dyslexia also have ADHD. And those with dyslexia use about 5 times more energy to complete mental tasks.
- Dyslexia is not a disease so there is no cure. It’s a learning disability that includes difficulty in the use/processing of linguistic and symbolic codes, alphabetic letters representing speech sounds or number and quantities.
- Dyslexics do not “see” words backwards. The “b-d” letter reversal for example is mainly caused by deficits in interpreting left and right.
- The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that 15 percent of the population has dyslexia.
Start an awareness campaign about this issue at your school. GO
Sources: Dyslexia Center of Utah, PBS, dyslexia.learninginfo.org, Binda Dyslexia Center
