16 Most Usual Signs of Dyslexia in Children and Adults

A learning disorder that involves a profound or partial difficulty or inability in reading, dyslexia can affect people of all ages, given that it is typically something that affects a person for their whole life.

Dyslexia describes the condition whereby people find it hard to identify speech sounds, as well as finding it hard to learn how and when these speech sounds relate to written letters and words. This prevents proper and consistent decoding of words, meaning that the skill of reading is incredibly difficult to master and maintain.

Dyslexia affects the part of the brain that processed language. It is usually the case that people with dyslexia have normal intelligence and normal vision, and specialized adaptations in school facilities and work environments can mean that people with dyslexia are able to function perfectly well.

There are several fairly common signs of dyslexia in children and adults which make it identifiable.

1. Late talking

This is obviously one of the signs of dyslexia that is most commonly observed in children. Late talking can sometimes just be attributed to a child picking things up at a slower pace than they might’ve been expected to, but it can also be a tell-tale sign of dyslexia.

For the first two years of a child’s life, they may prefer to acknowledge and respond to questions and instructions with gestures and actions as opposed to language, and this reluctance to experiment with language can often signpost that a child is struggling to make the neural connections with understanding speech and producing speech.

Speech and language therapists can help to address these early problems with therapy and clinics, but it is often the case that a person with dyslexia will simply take longer than their peers to develop language and start talking.

Usually, however, it isn’t the speech that ends up being the main area of concern for someone with dyslexia.