Parents
If you are watching your child struggle academically and socially at school, and he/she is exhibiting signs of a language learning disability, it is never too late to begin seeking support and resources.
DII offers support for children with dyslexia and their families beginning with testing and diagnosis evaluation. If your child is diagnosed with a language learning disability (dyslexia), DII has a wide variety of support services and resources available.
Early intervention is important. Look for the following childhood signs:
- Late language development (age 2-3)
- Trouble accurately repeating syllables of words (age 2-3)
- Trouble learning rhymes and songs (age 3)
- Difficulty learning alphabet (age 4)
- Difficulty identifying letters of the alphabet (age 5)
- Persistent mispronunciations of basic and familiar words (age 4-5)
- Requires more than usual repetition of simple requests and instructions (age 4-5)
- Difficulty learning sounds associated with letters (age 5)
- Persistent letter and number reversals: b-d, p-q, etc. (age 5-6)
- Difficulty spelling simple words such as “cat” “dog” “pig” (age 5-6)
- Poor recognition of simple and familiar words (age 5-6)
- Poor comprehension of stories and poor explanations (age 5-6)
- Letter formation shows little improvement in quality (age 5-6)
- Difficulty learning sounds associated with basic letter combinations such as “ch” “sh” “ow” “st” (age 6)
- Persistently transposes letters and numbers (age 6)
Know that these characteristics may accompany dyslexia:
- Lack of awareness of sounds in words – sound order, rhymes, or sequence of syllables
- Spelling difficulty
- Poor sequencing of numbers or letters in words, when read or written, for example; sing-sign; left-felt; 12-21
- Problems with reading comprehension
- Difficulty expressing thoughts in written form
- Delayed spoken language
- Imprecise or incomplete interpretation of language that is heard
- Difficulty in expressing thoughts orally
- Confusion about directions in space or time (right and left, up and down, early and late, yesterday and tomorrow, month and days)
- Confusion about right or left handedness
- Similar problems among relatives
- Difficulty with handwriting
- Difficulty in mathematics – often related to sequencing of steps or directionality or to the language of mathematics
