Supporting Students with Learning Difficulties
About Dyslexia
Dyslexic people have lateral thinking strengths that are not necessarily connected to language skills. They can be creative and original thinkers often with natural strengths in art, sculpture, design, architecture and engineering. However, where academic language skills are required dyslexia is generally regarded as a disability.
Many adults who have not been identified as dyslexic at school do not realise that they are dyslexic. The main areas of difficulty are connected with reading, writing, spelling, numeracy, personal organisation and time keeping. The list below may help you to identify some of the problems it may cause. However, though dyslexia may manifest itself in a variety of ways, it is most unlikely that all these characteristics will be evident in one person.
- a noticeable disparity between the ability to use words and his/her level of intelligence
- verbal skills and performance in practical problem-solving are not consistent with academic achievement
- difficulty following group discussion resulting in a lack of participation, apparent boredom or frustration not consistent with his/her level of intelligence
- written work is untidy and includes poor spelling and punctuation
- reluctance to commit ideas to paper and when required to do so an inability to think what to write
- endings of words are often missed in reading and spelling
- some words are missed or not seen when reading and writing sentences
- books take an extremely long time to read and understand
- information is easily forgotten
- note-taking is difficult
- sequences are difficult to identify and remember
- figures or letters are often reversed or left out
- difficulty remembering tables
- difficulty with mental arithmetic
- telephone messages are difficult to remember
- time-management and self-organisation is difficult
- confusion over directional words, e.g., left and right, up and down, in and out
Your progression in your studies could be restricted by a combination of these difficulties, but it is possible to manage dyslexia so that you can minimise its impact on your life. If you feel that these are difficulties that you have experienced in your own life, please contact Student Support Office.
For further help with dsylexia and other learning difficulties, please see our Disability web pages.