14 Main Characteristics of Alexia or Word Blindness

Word blindness is a profoundly complex neurological disorder that is typically characterized by a partial or total loss of the ability to read or understand the written word in all its forms. Word blindness is a very complex visually manifesting disturbance that results from a disease in the visual areas at the back parts of the brain.

A person who has suffered a stroke may well be left with pure or partial word blindness, otherwise known as Alexia. Partial word blindness allows the individual to at least recognize letters but only allows them to read certain types of words such as nouns like “inn” but not the more abstract sorts of words like prepositions, as with “in”.

There are many characteristics of this condition which make it easily identifiable from others like it. This article focusses on 8 of those characteristics and expands upon them a little, to provide a deeper context.

1. Very Common

First of all, it is important to note that whilst many people may not have heard of the condition, or indeed of any of its known and widely used names, it is one of the most common learning disabilities amongst adults and older people, stemming from external factors, illnesses or injuries. Unlike dyslexia, which is also known as Developmental Reading Disorder, Alexia or word blindness doesn’t have too much of high prevalence in children, and if it does, it is most commonly diagnosed as dyslexia instead.

Dyslexia, which is thought to be the world’s most prevalent language-based learning disability does bear some similarities to word blindness and alexia though, given that they both fall under the category of people finding it hard to read and recognize letters and words effectively, thus inhibiting their ability to read and to learn. As soon as you scratch beneath the surface, you may just start to see how common this condition is.