Why Is Testing For Dyslexia So Important? And What More Will You Know After You Have Finished A Dyslexic Test?
Dyslexia can be described as a condition that affects one's capability to manipulate symbols and sounds. It usually appears as difficulties in reading, going back and forth from letters to words and sounds, to meaning. As people do when they read aloud, for instance.
A dyslexic person's eyes see things the same as a non-dyslexic's eyes. But with the dyslexic, the brain interprets the signals received in a different way. You do not "catch" dyslexia, you are born with it. Roughly 1 out of every 10 has some type of dyslexia, to a certain degree. Having a test for dyslexia would be the only way to find out for certain whether an individual is dyslexic.
A dyslexic person can learn to do practically anything the non-dyslexics do, but dyslexics learn in a different way. They have to be taught in the manner they can learn. In any other case, they may never "get it" on their own, then get frustrated and stop trying, thereby shutting out a whole sector of learning and possibilities for themselves.
Nowadays, school-age children are routinely screened for dyslexia, however it wasn't always that way. Actually, it has only been in the last 15 or so years that screening and testing for dyslexia has become the rule, not the exception.
Most adults who graduated from elementary school more than 15 years ago haven't been tested. Consequently there are an estimated 2 million dyslexic adults in the USA alone.
What makes them difficult to find and help was the way the educational system treated them as children. They were not understood. They got branded as dull, lazy, underachievers and mental defectives (which most were definitely not!) They were injured and embarrassed at their differences. As defense mechanisms to protect themselves, they worked out how to hide those differences.
Today you could find them as people working at jobs way beneath what their intelligence would indicate they were capable of. This so that they can avoid paperwork, needing to read anything for their work. A painless dyslexic test could very well set them on the road to overcoming dyslexia and opening an entirely new world of possibilities...
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