Dyslexia
In Baton Rouge, LA
For children with dyslexia, everyday tasks can feel like an uphill climb. If you suspect your child might have dyslexia, or if they’ve been diagnosed with this condition, you may be surprised to learn that their challenges with reading, spelling, and academics may be a symptom of a developmental delay. Keep reading to learn more about dyslexia, what can cause it, and how our team at Dynamic Therapy Specialists can help your child overcome their reading challenges with personalized support.
What Is Dyslexia?
Dyslexia is a learning disability that affects how the brain processes and understands written words. When children first learn to read, they start by connecting the sounds to the letters of the alphabet. This is called decoding, and it is vital for being able to put the sounds of individual letters together to understand written words. In children with dyslexia, the brain has trouble with decoding written words, which can lead to reading challenges.
Signs of Dyslexia in Children
Recognizing the signs of dyslexia is important for early intervention. Common signs and symptoms of dyslexia in children may include:
- Difficulty with identifying individual sounds in words
- Slow or inaccurate reading
- Poor spelling or structuring of sentences
- Trouble seeing the differences and similarities in words
- Difficulty remembering words and their meanings
- Avoidance of activities that involve reading
- Frustration or anxiety when faced with reading tasks
What Can Cause Dyslexia?
Sometimes dyslexia can actually be a symptom of an underlying developmental delay or disorder. For example, some children may appear to have dyslexia when really the trouble is with their vision. Eye teaming is a visual skill where your eyes work together to generate a picture for your brain to process.
Because your eyes are slightly off center, they each receive a slightly different picture of the environment; but they work together through eye teaming to put these two pictures together to understand space, distance, shape, and more. A child who has trouble with eye teaming can appear to have dyslexia because the symptoms are very similar.
How We Address Dyslexia
At Dynamic Therapy Specialists, we take a holistic approach to pediatric therapy. Rather than simply teaching children how to compensate for the skills they struggle with, we take a bottom-up approach by focusing on remediation first. By evaluating the foundational areas of your child’s development, we can identify and address any underlying causes of their dyslexia symptoms.
Think of it this way: you have to learn to walk before you can learn to run. It’s not that you can’t learn how to run, but if you never learned how to walk first, you’ll be missing the basics that you need to support learning how to run. By prioritizing skill remediation over compensation, we empower children to build a strong foundation for future growth and development.
Schedule an Evaluation Today
If your child struggles with reading and you worry they might have dyslexia, or if they’ve received a diagnosis of dyslexia, our team at Dynamic Therapy Specialists will go above and beyond to help. Call us at (225) 767-5032 to schedule an evaluation, and let’s work together to improve your child’s quality of life.