"If you work hard, you'll learn..."!

Don’ts:-

•    Don’t use words like “If you work hard you will learn.” Among dyslexics who succeed, Dr. Shaywitz says many dyslexics give up their social lives and everything else to spend more hours studying. They are very bright, but they are terribly anxious and think, 'I've just been fooling everybody.” This is not right.
•    Dyslexic children have been hounded because of their failure at school, and further failures arouse such strong emotions and feelings in them that the brain’s normal systems are simply unable to cope with the stress and become overwhelmed. This taxes the brain’s normal functioning ability and may pose a danger to the child’s overall development.
•     Don’t demoralize them.
•   Don’t pressurize them into learning, reading and writing. “You have to come first in class” is probably the worst thing you can say to a dyslexic child.
•    Don’t blame the child for not understanding something in class or at home. The child is not at fault. The learning difficulty is such that certain things skim over the child’s mind entirely.
•     Don’t exclude the child from normal social life or intellectual discussions. Let him/her be as much a part of those activities as you are.
•     Don’t underestimate the child’s potential. You never know how the child is going to blossom.
•    Don’t send him/her to schools meant for mentally retarded children or special school. Your child is not mentally retarded, only dyslexic.

Brain wiring

What is dyslexia? The word is based on two Greek words-“dys” meaning difficulty, and “lexic” meaning anything to do with words.

According to the World Federation of Neurology, “Dyslexia is a disorder manifested by difficulties in learning to read, despite conventional instruction, adequate intelligence and socio-cultural opportunities.”

It has been found that 20% of school-going children have several difficulties in learning to read and write, out of which 14% to 17% have a learning disability (LD). But 3% to 6% are dyslexic. It is a fairly rare disorder. It is a neurological condition and there is no known cause or cure for dyslexia till now. 

Dyslexia is a specific reading disability due to a defect in the brain's processing. The brain has two important areas-the cerebrum and the cerebellum. The cerebrum receives and processes stimuli from the outer environment with the help of sensory organs, and the cerebellum takes care of body control and movements and makes it possible to connect the body’s responses effectively with the outside environment. When this connection is delayed, or when the neural pathways are incomplete, it creates a condition known as “cerebellar delay”, which causes dyslexia.