Inability to read. Dyslexia: obvious and hidden causes

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And for some of us, any text is like higher mathematics. “It’s difficult for me to fill out official forms,” admits 29-year-old Elena, an employee of a cleaning company, “I feel like I’m writing incorrectly, but I don’t understand how to write correctly.” “Functional illiteracy is the inability to comprehensively use the skills of reading, counting and writing,” defines psychiatrist Grigory Gorshunin, “the inability to integrate them into one’s social behavior, to gain advantages by assimilating new information.”

The degree of functional illiteracy varies, and not everyone is concerned about it. “By my senior year, I earned money for a car and drove it to school,” says 38-year-old Dmitry, an entrepreneur. “I saw no reason to study.” Now I sometimes regret this. But I just dictate everything I need to the secretary, and there are no problems.”

Too many letters

“I honestly read the school curriculum, but since then I can’t hear about any fiction,” admits 32-year-old Victor. “I recently picked up a novel by a contemporary writer from a bookstore, looked at it, and immediately put it back on the shelf. “A lot of bukaf, niasilil,” as they say on the Internet.” Is it really possible to forget how to read? It turns out that it’s still possible! It's not like riding a bike.

“Cognitive, that is, cognitive, skills are different from motor ones,” explains cognitive psychologist Maria Falikman. – It is enough to master a motor skill once, and it will remain for life. But with playing the piano this will no longer work, because it involves not only motor, but also cognitive skills. Purely cognitive skills are lost even faster.”

“Long sentences for teenagers are incomprehensible and unnecessary in the age of likes and emoticons”

“After studying Pushkin’s work, I asked the ninth grade class to write a love letter and received answers like this: “Hello, let’s meet at 16.00 in the center of the Novokuznetskaya station,” lamented literature teacher at the Pirogov School in Moscow, Irina Vasilkova. – Long sentences are incomprehensible to them and are not needed in the age of likes and emoticons. Even a textbook is difficult for today’s children to read; they cannot find the answer to a question in the paragraph assigned for home.”

Risk areas

It is natural to assume that functional illiteracy threatens people from low-income families. 60% of adults in US correctional facilities read below a fourth grade level. 43% of adults with minimal literacy levels live below the poverty line 1 . But it is not only the poor who are under attack.

“It is curious that the four sons of John Rockefeller, Jr....became functionally illiterate because they were taught to read at the Lincoln Experimental School,” argued writer and educator Samuel Blumenfeld. “But they weren’t called functionally illiterate.” They were called "dyslexics", a fancy word for the same condition."

Maria Falikman does not agree with this; in her opinion, dyslexia and functional illiteracy are different things: “Dyslexia is a neurological diagnosis. People with dyslexia have disturbances in the functional organization of the brain.” And although for an observer the manifestations of dyslexia and functional illiteracy look the same, the second, unlike the first, is “cured” without therapy, through training.

To complex - from simple

“I decided to read a smart book so that they would no longer consider me a pretty fool,” says 23-year-old fashion model Zinaida. “But I noticed that I was reading the same page over and over again and still didn’t understand anything!” In learning, it is important to follow the principle “from simple to complex,” recalls Maria Falikman: “There is no point in immediately taking on large texts. It’s better to start with small fragments, maybe even sentences, then move on to stories and so, step by step, move to more complex levels.” But to understand the meaning of a text, it is not enough to have the ability to read and the ability to think about what you read; you also need cultural literacy.

30% of students are functionally illiterate

About 30% of students cannot identify the main idea in a text, find the given information, and do not understand the coherence of events. Russia ranked 27th in terms of literacy rates in this study 3 .

In developed countries, 60% of students demonstrate satisfactory literacy, in Russia - only 43%. Poland, Greece, Latvia, and Mexico have similar indicators. The share of Russians who never read books is 46%; 36% read occasionally 4 .

Cultural background

Speakers of the same culture have a common language. It's not just about vocabulary and grammar, but about associations, codes, memes. “The words we speak, read or write are the tip of the iceberg of communication,” says cultural scientist Eric Hirsch, creator of the theory of cultural literacy. – To read well, you need to know a lot. If you know about ponds, about thrushes, wires and fruits, you have more ability to read than if you only know about thrushes. For reading comprehension, we need to recognize information that is embedded in the text but not literally presented. This is background knowledge: something that is “already clear” and does not require explanation. So, we know who Pushkin is or that the legs of hobbits are covered with wool. But we may not know who Grant and Lee are - this is part of American cultural literacy, but not Russian.

Background knowledge helps us learn, because learning is the correlation of new things with what is already known. Therefore, those who know a lot learn new things faster and easier than those who know little.

As a joke or seriously?

Misunderstandings are not always due to illiteracy. “We almost broke up! And Maxim magazine is to blame for this!” – complains 35-year-old Nikolai. He read a recommendation in the article: when a girl gives a blowjob, hold her ears. And I did as my favorite magazine advised. The friend became very angry and threatened to leave. “I said that I had nothing to do with it, it was written there. And she kept repeating: how can you not understand that this is a joke! - says Nikolai. “But how could I have guessed this, since there were no emoticons there?!”

The fact is that Nikolai built the context incorrectly. “This is not illiteracy as such,” says Maria Faliman, “but a problem of understanding context, irony and humor. There are large individual differences here. And even the same person at different times may be more or less inclined to perceive humor.” The humorous effect is based on the fact that the meaning of the statement changes depending on the context. Discovering these meanings gives us intellectual pleasure.

But if we are unaware of the existence of additional reading possibilities or, for example, are too tired to think about them, we read the message only at the literal level.

Not all errors are due to lack of information. Sometimes too much of it gets in the way

Not all errors are due to lack of information. Sometimes its excess bothers us. Many people think that celebrity couples break up more often than ordinary people. But statistics do not confirm this. Where does this impression come from? Because the divorces of stars are reported much more often than the marital troubles of postmen.

The science of the 20th century considered man to be a rational being, and explained errors by the influence of emotions (fear, affection, hatred...). Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman has questioned this assumption. He investigated errors of thinking and discovered that they were caused by the mechanism of thinking itself. For example, he proposed a problem: 600 people fell ill with a dangerous disease. Is it worth purchasing the medicine if 400 people will die anyway? Most answer “no”. But when the question is formulated differently: “the medicine will save 200 people,” the answer is usually “yes,” although the situation has not changed 6 . “Everyone falls into these traps, including specialists in formal logic,” notes Maria Falikman.

Limited resources

In addition to this, our attention span is limited: if we are busy with something, we may not notice the obvious. Remember The Invisible Gorilla? In this experiment, viewers watched a video of basketball players wearing white and black jerseys and counted the number of passes made by the team wearing white. In the middle of the video, a man in a gorilla suit appeared in the frame for 9 seconds, crossed the platform, tapped himself on the chest and left. The video was seen by thousands of viewers, but half of them did not notice anything unusual and at first could not believe that they had missed the “gorilla.” So not only can we be blind to the obvious, but we are also unaware of our own blindness.

“Anything that takes up memory space reduces your ability to think,” says Daniel Kahneman. For this reason, the flow of information that we receive daily from the media and the Internet “reduces brain activity, which is necessary for meaningful decision-making,” says neurolinguist Tatyana Chernigovskaya. It can be assumed that one of the reasons for functional illiteracy is the information environment.

Clip consciousness

In the 90s, people started talking about clip thinking, and sometimes even about “clip culture,” which would become part of the information picture of the future. It does not require imagination or comprehension, but it does require constant rebooting and updating. “We are besieged and blinded by contradictory and irrelevant fragments of imagery that cut the ground from under our old ideas, bombarding us with torn, meaningless “clips”, instantaneous frames,” as futurologist Alvin Toffler describes it. 8 .

“Anything that takes up memory space reduces your ability to think.”

Tatyana Chernigovskaya assesses this trend as clearly negative: “If there is a new round in the development of humanity, it is downward. The world we live in is not the same as in all previous millennia. The number of those who find it difficult to write and read is in the millions! We need to read more serious books, which are what make us human.”

Overload response

But what if clip consciousness is the body’s defensive reaction to information overload? “An inevitable reaction,” Grigory Gorshunin clarifies, “because we need to understand what the essence of the matter is in a situation of shortage of time, strength, and energy.” Since 1990, the volume of information has doubled every year 9 . In this situation, “those who work a lot follow the news and professional literature, but they rarely have time to read a novel,” notes the psychiatrist.

The situation is paradoxical: clip thinking helps us quickly extract information from a homogeneous stream, but this stream is visual, not textual, and those who have been in it since childhood lose the ability to think critically. “Parents complain about children who don’t read,” notes Grigory Gorshunin, “but they themselves sit the child in front of the TV or give him a gadget so that he can relax. The main danger of the new illiteracy is not that someone will prefer video to text, but that we will not have a strategy for selecting information, we will not be able to assess what we need.”

However, if you, dear reader, were able to read this text to the end, you have nothing to worry about: your functional literacy is fine!

1 Data from the US National Center for Educational Statistics.

2 S. Blumenfeld “What Is Functional Illiteracy?”, New American, 07.12. 2012.

3 Program for International Student Assessment (pisa.oecd.org).

4 “Public Opinion 2008” (Yearbook of the Yuri Levada Analytical Center, 2008).

5 E. Hirsch, Jr., et al. Cultural Literacy (Boston, 2002)

6 D. Kahneman “Think slowly, decide quickly” (AST, 2013).

7 C. Johnson, “The Information Diet: A Case for Conscious Consumption” (O’Reilly Media, 2012).

8 E. Toffler “Future Shock” (AST, 2002).

9 Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1999.

Dyslexia is one of the common learning problems in children, which manifests itself as a specific reading disorder. The cause of this disease is associated with neurological disorders of a genetic nature. A person suffering from dyslexia has difficulty mastering reading and writing skills.

Problems associated with dyslexia:

1. Difficulties in mastering reading, despite a sufficient level of intellectual (and speech) development for this;
2. Difficulty in perceiving written information;
3. Coordination problems (clumsiness, problems in planning movements;
4. Has difficulty developing the ability to read and write, and has poor spelling skills;
5. Poor orientation in space, disorganization;
6. Has difficulty recognizing words, often does not understand what he has just read;
7. ADHD - Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Syndrome.

Symptoms of dyslexia

There are a number of symptoms that are characteristic of dyslexia that can help parents understand that their child has this disorder and take the necessary steps to treat it.

Signs of dyslexia:

1. The child often rubs his eyes, squints a little;
2. Holds a book close to the eyes, may cover or even close one eye when reading;
3. Gets tired very quickly;
4. Trying to avoid doing homework and reading under any pretext;
5. Can read a book with his head turned so that one eye is not involved in reading;
6. When reading, he skips certain words or does not notice certain places in the text;
7. While reading or after reading, he complains of a severe headache;
8. The child has difficulty remembering, identifying and reproducing basic geometric shapes;
9. At an early age he writes words backwards;
10. Reads very poorly (his reading does not correspond to what is expected at this age);
11. The child's handwriting is very bad, words overlap each other.

Dyslexia should be diagnosed as early as possible. However, you should pay attention to the fact that the child may simply have vision problems, so he must be taken to a consultation with an ophthalmologist. Therefore, if you cannot accurately determine the symptoms of dyslexia, it is better to entrust this matter to a specialist.

Diagnosis of dyslexia

Most parents have no idea that their child has dyslexia until they enter kindergarten or school and start learning symbols. Children who have a delay in passive and active speech and who cannot catch up with their peers after the first stage of education need to be examined.

Dyslexia in children is assessed for reading skills, hearing skills, language development and cognitive abilities. Children also undergo a psychological examination, which helps determine the children’s functional characteristics and their preferred forms of education. At the request of teachers or parents, research is carried out that will help determine the level of understanding of the text when reading, text analysis, understanding of read speech, listening speech. Through this research, effective approaches to teaching a child can be identified.

As a result of the study, the functions of active and passive speech are assessed, and cognitive abilities (memory, reasoning, attention) are examined. Language, pronunciation, and oral speech perception are also assessed.

Psychological assessment can help identify the emotional aspects that contribute to the reading disorder. To do this, collect a complete family history, which includes the presence of emotional disorders and mental disorders in the family.

The doctor needs to make sure that the child has normal vision and normal hearing. With the help of a neurological examination, it is possible to identify the presence of dyslexia in children, neuropsychic immaturity, or neurological disorders in order to exclude any other diseases.

Causes of dyslexia

Impairments in combining, recognizing, analyzing, and remembering sounds cause problems with phonological processing. With dyslexia, there are disturbances in verbal speech, writing and understanding written speech, which in the future can lead to problems with memory, finding suitable words, and speech formation.

Cases of familial dyslexia are common. Children from such families often suffer from this disorder. Scientists believe that dyslexia occurs due to congenital abnormalities of the central nervous system. There is an opinion that this is due to disorders in the areas of the brain in the left hemisphere that are responsible for speech motor skills and speech reproduction. If there are disturbances in the right hemisphere, then the person has problems recognizing words.

Dyslexia does not include abnormal eye movements and visual-perceptual problems, although they also affect learning and understanding words.

Not all children can learn to read and write with equal success, and this may not be due to laziness or inattention. Parents of such children are increasingly hearing the word “dyslexia.” This is a whole complex of problems that arise when mastering various skills: reading, mathematics, writing, orientation in space and time, coordination and motor skills. Maria Stulova, a dyslexia correction specialist and the first Russian methodologist licensed by the international association DDAI, talks about what it is and how to help a dyslexic child.

Dyslexic children may have outstanding abilities, but they also suffer greatly from the difficulties associated with dyslexia, from the rejection of their peers and, worst of all, from their teachers.

How to recognize dyslexia

First of all, you should not look for dyslexia in a child under 8 years old! Absurd mistakes when reading and writing, “mirror” and “jumping” letters - all this is acceptable for a child at the first stage of mastering reading and writing skills. It is worth worrying if the situation has not changed by the end of first grade.

What makes a dyslexic child different? There is a set of characteristic features that may differ and change. And this inconstancy is also a sign of dyslexia.

General signs

A dyslexic child seems very smart, but at the same time he reads and writes worse than his classmates. He is often considered lazy and behind both academically and developmentally. Naturally, he is very worried.

Such a child often daydreams, is easily distracted, forgets about time, and loses attention. He learns best through practical experience, experiments, observations and visual aids.

Reading, spelling, vision

When reading, a dyslexic person complains of dizziness, nausea or headache. And letters, numbers, words, verbal explanations confuse him.

While reading, the child thinks out the endings, does not finish reading the words, rereads them several times, but practically does not grasp the meaning. Frequent repetitions, additions, rearrangements, omissions and substitutions of letters, numbers and words are noticeable.

He writes with a huge number of errors, omitting, duplicating or replacing letters. Capital letters and punctuation marks are often missing; can write several words together without making spaces.

The child feels or sees non-existent movements while reading, writing or copying.

Seems to have difficulty seeing, although tests show normal vision.

Hearing and speech

A dyslexic has good hearing, he is able to hear what others cannot hear, and is easily distracted by various sounds.

He has difficulty expressing his thoughts, his speech is poor, monosyllabic; speaks with hesitation; does not complete sentences; stutters when excited; pronounces long words incorrectly; swaps phrases, words and syllables; has difficulties with the consistency of presentation.

Writing and motor skills

A dyslexic person has choppy or illegible handwriting. It is difficult for him to write and rewrite texts. He holds a pencil or pen in an unusual way.

Often confuses right and left, up and down, and has poor coordination of movements, which is why team sports and ball games fail. There is a susceptibility to motion sickness.

Math and time

A dyslexic person has difficulty understanding the terms of tasks, determining and calculating time, when... He uses finger counting and other techniques to make calculations. Knowing the answers, he cannot do calculations on paper.

Memory and cognition

A dyslexic child has an excellent long-term memory for impressions, places and faces. He is very observant and remembers in detail events that became his personal experience. At the same time, such a child does not remember information that he did not receive in practice. He thinks more often with the help of images and sensations, rather than sounds and words.

Behavior, health, development and personality

A child with signs of dyslexia is intellectually normal. But his behavior lags behind his age. Often the emotional maturity of a 17-year-old teenager corresponds to 13 years. A dyslexic person can be extremely disorganized and very pedantic, and in the classroom play the role of a buffoon, a bully or a silent person. He has a keen sense of justice and emotional sensitivity.

The number of errors in reading and writing and other symptoms increases sharply with, as well as with haste and health problems.

How to find the cause of dyslexia

There are two main approaches to defining dyslexia.

First - pedagogical: here we see the presence of symptoms, but there are no disturbances in the physics of the body and psyche. This can be determined after a thorough medical examination. In this case, science is not yet able to explain the causes of dyslexia.

Dyslexia can be observed in a clinically healthy child who is cheerful, open, free to communicate, and only becomes sad and upset when it’s time to sit down for lessons. This form lends itself well to pedagogical correction with a specialist.

Second - clinical-psychological: Symptoms of dyslexia occur when there are disorders that affect the functioning of the brain. These may be mental characteristics, neurological diseases, developmental pathologies, and so on. To find these violations, you need to contact specialists.

Dyslexia is not a disease and does not require treatment in itself!

Neurologist

Go through the maximum possible examination: encephalogram and brain tomography, Doppler examination of blood vessels. It is important to determine whether dyslexia is a consequence of some objective reasons. But it is much more important to promptly identify or exclude serious pathologies, disorders, and malfunctions in the functioning of systems that affect the functioning of the brain. Contact neurological diagnostic centers and institutes. If problems are identified, medical attention may be needed.

Psychologist

Any dyslexic needs the help of a psychologist. It will help you identify your child's stress levels and find the causes. Dyslexics often have communication problems and difficulties with everyday activities: going to the store on their own, traveling by transport. Fear and lack of understanding of what is happening to them makes them withdrawn and even more incomprehensible to others. And this makes their socialization even more difficult.

Neuropsychologist

The task of this specialist is to build new neural connections. This process lasts at least 9-12 months. If you are offered two-week or three-month courses, this is dishonest work and a money grab.

How to cope with dyslexia

Is it possible to get rid of it?

It is impossible to “cure” dyslexia once and for all; it can be corrected and the child can be given “tools” that will make his life and learning process much easier and will help him independently regulate his condition. But we cannot change the dyslexic’s perception of the world and the functioning of his brain. If we want to overcome dyslexia, then we must gain patience , show your attention, participation and support to a child suffering from this illness. And dyslexia correction specialists will teach him the ways of mastering information that are right for him.

What is dyslexia correction?

If treatment for disorders causing dyslexia is necessary, then you should ask your doctors about its duration and effectiveness.

We are talking about the correction of dyslexia in cases where the child is clinically healthy. The Davis method is suitable here, which is now considered the most effective tool for correcting dyslexia. The Davis Method is about understanding a dyslexic person's perception and vision of the world from the inside. The method itself is based on a special approach to teaching children and adults. This approach is highly effective and restores self-confidence in a very short time.

The indisputability of the methodology can also be assessed by the reaction of children who happily run to classes. According to the guys themselves, they are understood here and speak the same language with them. Children move forward step by step, master the keys of the methodology and open doors to a new world one after another.

Parental involvement in dyslexia correction

I consider it mandatory for parents to participate in the correction process and willingly share knowledge with them. Correction necessary to build missing connections in the brain. And for this need time ! The success of such work depends on the child’s motivation, his desire to change the situation for the better, and on the degree of dyslexia itself. It can manifest itself in a mild form, or it can be such that the child cannot cope without the help of specialists and parents.

Help your child yourself

First of all, try to understand what your child has. This means that his thoughts are pictures. No one taught the baby to describe images, so it is difficult for him to express his thoughts in words. Words that are not associated with images are just sounds for him, from which he gets tired. This is why there is often a feeling that the child does not immediately understand everything. That is why dyslexia is a frequent companion to the diagnosis of ADD (attention deficit disorder). That is why the speech of a dyslexic child is often confused, inconsistent, monosyllabic, and there is a clear sense of impoverished vocabulary in it. Try to describe La Gioconda in words. Feeling confused? A dyslexic child feels the same way when he needs to convey his thoughts.

Develop his speech

The first thing we must do is to begin to develop his speech and build up his vocabulary. But your child will not understand you if you explain everything to him as you are used to - “in words.” He needs images! You must learn to show him everything! There will be no problems with obvious things: these are objects, signs, actions. But what to do with prepositions, terms, interjections? Here you should come to a training seminar.

A dyslexic child masters and subsequently uses only what is his own life experience. Therefore, our task is to provide him with this experience. I advise you to stock up on dictionaries: explanatory, antonyms, synonyms, proverbs and sayings. Dyslexics take everything literally; they need to be taught to understand proverbs.

It should become a way of your life! Why is this so important? Teaching a dyslexic to read is not that difficult. But he will not be able to understand the text: in his mind there are no connections between the images in his head and the words. You need to study words in different meanings. One preposition alone can have from 5 to 15 meanings. Similar difficulties can arise with mathematics and other subjects for the same reason. Numbers, notes, punctuation marks are all the same symbols, they are abstract for a dyslexic.

Don't force me to read

Until a child has undergone correction for dyslexia, reading causes him enormous difficulties. Imagine that you are reading in a moving car that is shaking violently on the road. You will not read and put the book down. A dyslexic experiences the same thing, but we ! The result is hysterics, headaches, nausea, tears...

Read to him yourself, give him more visual information: films, performances. All school textbooks exist in audio format; there are plenty of recordings of radio plays on the Internet.

Get involved in sports

Exercises for balance and coordination of movements are especially important: this is the formation of interhemispheric connections. Wushu, qigong, yoga, and trampoline are suitable here. And also breathing exercises: it allows you to achieve balance, balance of your internal state!

Be sure to consult a specialist, get diagnosed and get recommendations regarding your child.

Every parent dreams that their child will be born healthy and grow up beautiful and smart. Fortunately, in most cases this happens, but sometimes there are unpleasant exceptions.

Modern medicine has made great strides forward, and many dangerous diseases are already curable. But there are rare and strange diseases that have not yet been studied enough. Even the best doctors are unable to understand the causes of their occurrence and help people who suffer from them.

1. Dysgraphia, dyslexia, dyscalcuria

At first, everything looks completely normal: the child grows, plays, learns. But at certain times, parents are faced with strange problems. It is absolutely impossible to teach their children to read, write, and count. What is the reason and what to do? Is it just laziness or some strange disease?

Written speech consists of two types of speech activity - writing and reading. Strange and somewhat scary words like dysgraphia and dyslexia mean the inability or difficulty in mastering writing and reading. Most often they are observed simultaneously, but sometimes they can occur separately. A complete inability to read is called alexia, a complete inability to write is called agraphia.

Many doctors do not consider these deviations to be a disease, but attribute them to the structural features of the brain with a completely different worldview and a different view of familiar things. Dyslexia should be corrected, not cured. The inability to read and write can be complete or partial: the inability to understand letters and symbols, entire words and sentences, or complete text. A child can be taught to write, but at the same time he makes a lot of blots and confuses letters and symbols. And, of course, this does not happen because of inattention or laziness. This needs to be understood. This child needs specialist help.

The previous symptoms are often accompanied by another unpleasant symptom – dyscalcuria. It is characterized by an inability to understand numbers, which is likely due to an inability to understand letters and symbols when reading. Sometimes children perform operations with numbers in their heads quite well, but they cannot complete tasks described in text. This probably happens because a person does not have the ability to perceive the text as a whole.

Unfortunately, modern medicine does not yet provide a definite answer to the question of why a dyslexic cannot learn to read, write, or count either at 6 or 12 years old, or as an adult.

2. Dyspraxia - lack of coordination

This abnormality is characterized by the inability to perform simple tasks, such as brushing teeth or tying shoelaces. The trouble for parents is that they do not understand the specifics of this behavior, and instead of paying due attention, they show anger and irritation.

But, in addition to childhood diseases, there are many such, no less strange, ailments that a person encounters in adulthood. You most likely have never even heard of some of them.

3. Micropsia or Alice in Wonderland syndrome

This is fortunately a fairly rare neurological disorder that affects people's visual perception. Patients see people, animals and objects around them much smaller than they really are. In addition, the distances between them appear distorted. This disease is often called “Lilliputian vision,” although it affects not only vision, but also hearing and touch. Even your own body may seem completely different. Typically, the syndrome continues even when the eyes are closed and more often appears at nightfall, when the brain lacks information about the size of surrounding objects.

4. Stendhal syndrome

A person may not even realize that he has a disease of this kind until his first visit to an art gallery. When he gets into a place where there is a large number of art objects, he begins to experience severe symptoms of a panic attack: rapid heartbeat, dizziness, increased heart rate and even hallucinations. In one of the galleries in Florence, such cases often occurred with tourists, which served as the basis for the description of this disease. This disease got its name thanks to the famous writer Stendhal, who described similar symptoms in his book “Naples and Florence.”

5. Maine Jumping Frenchman Syndrome

The main symptom of this rather rare genetic disease is considered to be severe fear. Such patients, at the slightest sound stimulus, jump up, scream, wave their arms, then fall, roll on the floor and cannot calm down for a long time. This disease was first recorded in the United States in 1878 by a French lumberjack in Maine. This is where its name comes from. Another name for it is heightened reflection.

6. Urbach-Wiethe disease

Sometimes this more than strange disease is called the “brave lion” syndrome. This is a very rare genetic disease, the main symptom of which is an almost complete absence of fear. Numerous studies have shown that the absence of fear is not the cause of the disease, but is a consequence of the destruction of the amygdala of the brain. Typically, such patients have a hoarse voice and wrinkled skin. Fortunately, since the discovery of this disease, less than 300 cases of its manifestation have been recorded in the medical literature.

7. Alien hand syndrome

This is a complex neuropsychiatric disease, which is characterized by the fact that one or both of the patient’s hands act as if on their own. German neurologist Kurt Goldstein first described the symptoms of this strange disease when he observed his patient. During sleep, her left hand, acting according to some incomprehensible rules of its own, suddenly began to strangle its “mistress.” This strange disease occurs due to damage to the transmission of signals between the hemispheres of the brain. With such a disease, you can harm yourself without realizing what is happening.

Latest research offers new hope for those suffering from this disease

Eight-year-old Seryozha Kaledin* did well in mathematics, drew well, and was skilled in sports, but reading and writing were a real punishment for him. Even by the end of 2nd grade, Seryozha was unable to remember how to write the simplest words and could not retell the text.

The teacher suspected something was wrong and advised Serezha’s parents to contact a specialist. The speech therapist diagnosed dyslexia. This means a partial disorder in the process of mastering reading, which manifests itself in repeated errors. “In recent years, the number of children with dyslexia has increased significantly,” says G.V. Chirkina, a professor at the Moscow Research Institute of Corrective Pedagogy. “The high pace of learning and intensive programs are identifying more and more of these children.”

According to L.V. Lopatina, head of the department of speech therapy at the St. Petersburg State Pedagogical University named after. Herzen, dyslexia is often detected when the disorders become persistent and the child has a lot of related problems: the process of reading causes disgust, low self-esteem is formed, and difficulties arise with adaptation in the team.

Many parents have a misconception about what dyslexia is. Moms and dads breathe a sigh of relief when the child begins to parse words syllable by syllable and even read entire sentences, but dyslexia in its mild form can remain undetected until high school. Others start to sound the alarm when they notice that a small child writes the letter "I" or the number 3 backwards - they simply do not know that almost all children at some stage of development turn their letters upside down.

Approximately eighty percent of reading problems among first-graders are associated with inept help from parents and the fact that the school program is not coordinated with the preparatory program of the kindergarten, says E.Yu. Klimontovich, a speech therapist with 26 years of experience, a specialist at the Center for Psychological, Medical and Social accompanying children and adolescents.

Dyslexia is a phenomenon in all languages ​​and cultures. Although scientists have not reached a consensus on the frequency of its occurrence, many put the figure between five and 15 percent. “It all depends on where to draw the line,” says Dr. Chirkina. “Whether we mean understanding the direct meaning of what we read or understanding allegories and allegories. We can only say with confidence that dyslexia begins with difficulties in mastering reading techniques ".

Many children, having a good memory, simply hide how difficult reading is for them.

Experts wondered whether dyslexia was related to a lack of verbal communication. “Children from families with low socio-economic status are more likely to experience educational neglect,” says Dr. Lopatina. “Such families, as a rule, seek help later. But gradually, if there are no underlying biological factors, the reading problem can be solved ".

The likelihood of dyslexia also depends on the child’s level of intellectual development. According to Dr. Chirkina, children with disabilities have a much more difficult time mastering reading skills. And if you place excessive demands on such a child or keep him in a general education school, then, of course, the lag behind his classmates will be very noticeable. But there are methods by which such children can be successfully taught to read and write.

Dyslexia is often detected in children with attention deficit disorder. “Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is often accompanied by a delay in the maturation of higher mental functions and, consequently, specific learning difficulties,” says Ph.D. A.L. Sirotyuk, author of the book “Neuropsychological and psychophysiological support of learning.” However, dyslexia also occurs in children with reduced activity. And the reason may be anxiety due to the inability to read and study.

Boys are usually more impulsive and show excessive activity in class, so they are more often referred for examination - then problems with reading are often revealed. However, research shows that gender does not particularly affect reading ability.

In most cases, the cause of dyslexia is a disorder in the processing of sounds and sound combinations, called phonological processing, says Dr. Chirkina. Then the child has difficulty understanding that words are divided into individual sounds, and is slower to learn to manipulate sounds. For example, a child may be confused by being asked to pronounce the word “mole” without the “k” sound.

Scientists have found that when children with dyslexia read, certain areas of the brain are not activated.

The question arises: what causes this neurobiological failure? It turns out that the speed and automaticity with which a reader translates letters into speech sounds is influenced by genes. People who have difficulty doing this usually have relatives with the same problems.

Another probable cause of dyslexia is fetal hypoxia, a lack of oxygen during intrauterine development. “This is a common phenomenon, especially among urban residents,” says Dr. Klimontovich. “As a result of hypoxia, the metabolism of brain cells is disrupted, as a result of which the child may experience some brain dysfunction.” However, according to G.V. Chirkina, “to say that dyslexia is directly related to hypoxia is very incorrect.”

Although difficulties in translating letters in unfamiliar words into speech have a genetic basis, the most effective way to cope with dyslexia is not medicine, but corrective pedagogy. Science is putting forward new arguments in favor of early intervention. Now most kindergartens employ speech therapists. They conduct screening tests to determine which children are at high risk of abnormalities.

According to experts, identifying dyslexia in grades 1-2 contributes to reading development in 82 percent of cases, in grade 3 - in 46 percent, and in grades 5-7 - only in 10-15 percent of cases. Dr. Sirotyuk believes that the later correctional work is started, the more pronounced secondary disorders appear: protest reaction, anxiety, neurotic symptoms, and so on.

If parents have reason to suspect dyslexia, do not wait. Now there are children's consultation centers in all major cities and regions. You can also contact a speech therapist at the clinic.

Olga Tarasova, the mother of seven-year-old Grisha, was concerned: by the middle of 1st grade, her son was still unable to master basic reading and writing skills. In addition, the usually cheerful boy became anxious, irritable and whiny. Tarasova turned to a speech therapist, who diagnosed Grisha with developing dyslexia and dysgraphia.

As it turned out, the cause of all the boy’s troubles was a pedagogical error: the teacher, in the old fashioned way, forced the left-handed boy to write with his right hand. This caused severe neurosis in the child, the consequences of which led to difficulties in mastering the program. After a course of classes, the boy’s problems were successfully resolved.

Some parents believe that they can confidently rule out the possibility of dyslexia if children do not lag behind their peers in the early grades. Although it is known that many children, having a good memory, simply hide how difficult reading is for them. Problems become apparent in high school when more complex texts are read.

How to recognize dyslexia in a timely manner? “The criterion is very simple,” explains E.Yu. Klimontovich. “If a child not only reads slowly, but also misses letters, distorts endings, poorly understands the meaning of what he read, cannot tell what he just read about, we believe that The child develops dyslexia."

Once it turns out that a child has difficulties with reading, parents are faced with the question of which curriculum to choose.

For full-fledged auditory phonemic development, close interaction between two speech analyzers is necessary: ​​auditory and speech motor, says G. V. Chirkina. - We have developed a special program for children with phonetic-phonemic underdevelopment. Many domestic speech therapists are now effectively working under this program.

It should be taken into account, believes A.L. Sirotyuk, that children with dyslexia develop cognitive interests late and retain play motivation for a long time. Role-playing games are most effective when they include actions necessary to develop the required skill. At the same time, reading becomes not an end in itself, but a means of achieving a game goal.

Discussion

Dear author, is it possible to talk about the formation of dyslexia if a child reads fluently, writes well (almost without errors), shares impressions about books and their characters, but is completely unable to retell in his own words what he has read? Either he categorically refuses (saying that it’s boring for him to repeat), or he recites the text memorized by heart instead of conveying the meaning in his own words. And how to teach him to retell the text? I have a boy, age 5 years and 10 months. Thank you.

04.05.2006 17:10:37, copywriter

The topic is interesting, but it’s bad that the article did not give a clear definition of dyslexia or at least outline the range of disorders that are usually classified as this disorder. It remains not entirely clear what signs should alert parents.

04.05.2006 13:22:17, Mrs. John

Comment on the article "Dyslexia: it is important to notice in time"

My girlfriend is not officially diagnosed with dyslexia, but when a child in the 6th grade writes Y backwards and does not see it, and reads normally, I cannot understand what kind of animal this is - CAS. I’m also afraid for the music and the extra mother: she categorically does not agree to abandon them...

Discussion

We have a diagnosis report from a private clinic, but what’s the point?
Studying hard - 3rd grade. He is not able to organize himself. homework only with adults. It’s hard... I’m glad that he reads and loves to read.

We have tutors in Russian and English. We work through topics in advance, write essays. independently - the text turns out to be incoherent or completely off-topic. I force you to read. gets tired quickly, has a small vocabulary. names, some words he simply skips. regularly uses words incorrectly in conversation. either in meaning or distorts. I already wrote “September”. Moreover, in the classroom I wrote September, at home - September. both entries on one page. now 5th grade. in history it’s already a problem to answer the question after the paragraph. even though the answers there are just sentences from the text:(((
and, I think, there is a rare inattention here - everything clings to one another. :(((
I'm checking my math. did it in class. proud of myself. dictates the task by heart. 46,47,48. I look: 46, 48. I ask where is 47??? the child was in shock:(((

I understand what uzon writes about. my opinion is this: now too many people are diagnosed with dyslexia and dysgraphia. True and difficult cases do not occur so often, and Rive Gauche writes about exactly this, kmk. and yes, only some special technique will help. but not so few children with enough...

Discussion

An experienced teacher must be an expert in his field. He knows the specifics of dyslexia and knows how to work with such children. My son has been training with this for two years, with another year to go. These efforts are aimed only at passing the State Examination Test. Very difficult: (But progress, of course, is visible. Everything is slow, but confident.
The sooner you start working with such children, the better. From 5th grade this is just in time!

I believe that a specialist who understands the issue or at least educates himself in this matter should work with dyslexia.

In my subject, for example, I virtually know a couple of people who are interested in the problem. For example, when teaching vocabulary and reading, markers of different colors are used to highlight significant words. This is unusual for a traditional method, and just a good teacher may not know or be able to do anything like this.

Simply pushing with discipline and rigor is not an option that will work, IMHO.

If there are no such specialists in your region or there are few of them, I think that your mother should take a deep interest in this topic herself, because your children need you, first of all. But you can consult a teacher and insist on certain forms of work as a customer of a tutor.

Please tell us about your and your child's experience with dyslexia correction. How life was structured, schooling, classes, leisure. I'm at the very beginning of this journey and I'm interested in everything. First of all, we need information about correctional centers.

Discussion

I am an adult dyslexic - dysgraphic in the 9th grade. We did not correct dyslexia as such, but solved specific problems, one at a time. I couldn’t learn to read - they taught me to read. Then they taught me to write. Difficulties with certain grammatical rules - dealt with them. Those. At each stage, we identified a problem and dealt primarily with it. From grades 1 to 7, my daughter had a private language teacher, who was also the mother of a dyslexic, with whom my daughter studied regularly once a week for 2 hours. Between classes at home, we only did schoolwork as usual, like all children. You correctly noted that the methods are different. This is because dyslexics are all different, they actually have different problems expressed to different degrees. One thing helps some, another helps others. You need to try to find an approach that suits your specific child, and then be patient. It is courageous to raise such children slowly and thoughtfully. Sometimes it seems that there are no results from classes, but in fact they have a cumulative effect, and the result may not be noticeable immediately. Sometimes it seems that there is no progress, but if you look, it turns out that the child is coping better or worse at school, albeit with help for now. KMC, this is already a result, since in fact the child solves an increasingly complex problem.

And so, in general, we have an ordinary life. At school my daughter has an individual. curriculum, from the 4th grade she can do all written work on the computer. She is given 2 times more time for exams than ordinary children. With this adaptation, she does well in school, now without a tutor, however, I still help her with written lessons, i.e. We do error checking together.

My main advice is to count your strength. If you torture your child with heavy doses of classes and exhaust yourself already at the elementary school stage, you will not be doing anyone a favor. Some things are easier to adapt to at an early age, but in general, dyslexics adapt constantly. My daughter continues to progress every year, although on special. We haven’t been working on techniques for three years now. It seems to me that she herself has already learned to circumvent the new difficulties that she encounters, i.e. She still had dyslexia, but it doesn’t really bother her anymore.

I couldn't find a special program.
There is a Territory of Speech. There is a Center for Curative Pedagogy. There, at least the specialists are in contact and can work together.
We are also in the region, so everything is even more complicated.
My attempts ended with a separate speech therapist who specializes in dysgraphia rather than dyslexia and short sessions with a neuropsychologist. + a lot of people herself.

At some point, after reading Doman’s book, I was inspired to study according to his method. My ardor was greatly cooled by the price. Well, after reading a lot of reviews, I realized that this is not a panacea.

Discussion

For now, I suggest deciding which language the girl has to read the most, and reading it out loud every day under your supervision. Just not for very long, so that it is a joy and not a burden. Preferably with a retelling of what you read.

Unfortunately, my own speech therapy child mastered reading more or less normally only on medications prescribed by a neurologist. Speech therapy techniques helped at first, but then began to cause rejection and protest. It seems to me that it was due to the fact that the brain was not sufficiently prepared for this, although due to age it was already time. The child tried, but could not do it, and that’s all.
As a result, I stopped demanding anything, leaving only medications and classes in the kindergarten speech therapy group (which we often missed due to illness). And after some time, to my surprise, my daughter began to be interested in comics and could try to read them for a very long time. By the age of 7 they switched to books, and only library ones. For some reason we are not interested in our family :) But I don’t care anymore, let him do what he wants, as long as he reads.

It may also make sense for you to have your child examined by a neurologist. Especially if there were any problems in early childhood.

25.11.2016 10:50:00, I've been reading occasionally since autumn 2012

Why did suspicions arise?
My daughter’s “main” language is not Russian, which probably means there are other mechanisms for teaching literacy... What are the problems?

Dyslexics and dysgraphics are all very different. One thing helps some, another helps others. I will take the liberty to say that there is no universal method that helps everyone. If the stated price is very significant for you, then I would not throw money away, but would choose a more economical option. Very often dyslexics need help for many years, IMHO, you need to calculate resources. I am very wary of methods that promise correction of dyslexia AND dysgraphia in a relatively short time. IMHO, the main thing in this matter is time. Dyslexics undergo a lot of internal correction, imperceptible at first glance, due to natural compensatory capabilities.

Dyslexia. Whose children managed to get rid of this problem or achieve noticeable results. What were the violations? Which specialists did you work with and for how long? My daughter confuses the letters B-D, T-P, etc. in pairs. She has been studying with a speech therapist for four months...

Discussion

A lot depends on the child, since dyslexia manifests itself in different ways and everyone’s compensatory capabilities are different. Some people manage to compensate completely, others don’t. You can't get rid of dyslexia, but you can adapt your child well. My daughter has been studying with a specialist for the second year. The results are noticeable in the sense that the existing problems were solved, but as new material is covered, new difficulties appear. Plus, you have to go back to what you have learned and constantly repeat it to make it automatic. She studies once a week for 2 hours + at home in the process of preparing lessons. I assume that my daughter will need a specialist for a long time, until the sixth grade, but the combined efforts allow her to do very well in school. In the first grade, mine mirrored letters, read syllables backwards, often did not finish reading, but guessed words, as a result of which I did not understand a lot, confused + and -, did many mathematical operations backwards or upside down, did not distinguish between right and left, wrote phonetically without capital letters , spaces between words and punctuation marks, and specific problems associated with the fact that she studies in French. Now, by the third grade, my daughter already reads very well and, most importantly, loves to read, she is very good at mathematics, although sometimes she solves examples in a mirror image, she still has difficulty distinguishing between right and left, she writes quite decently, especially if she concentrates properly, although, of course , there are still many problems, since new situations appear all the time to which it has to be adapted. I have the feeling that my daughter has to be taught a lot of things specially, a little differently than ordinary children.

I looked, you live in North-Eastern Administrative District, find the center for medical and pedagogical assistance to children closest to your home. There are very good specialists there. My child is also seeing a speech therapist about dysgraphia at the Uchastie center on Lenskaya. The classes are like speech therapy and at the same time improve the child’s Russian language skills, repeat spelling rules, etc. The speech therapist immediately at the first lesson asked me to bring a textbook on the Russian language so that she could navigate the program that the child was going through. The classes are free.

Children with dysgraphia, dyslexia and dyscalculia, as a rule, are not liked by teachers. Diagnosis of dysgraphia. By what signs can you guess that a child has dysgraphia? People with dysgraphia often have very poor handwriting - small or very large, illegible.

Discussion

I took it from my neuropsychiatrist yesterday, but I’m not sure what I’ll take. If you can’t find closer to Zelenograd, I’ll give you the coordinates.

We have dysgraphia. Even if you receive such a certificate, they will not stop demanding the same amount from the child as from everyone else. Our Russian teacher openly stated - I don’t want to see your boy in my lessons, do whatever you want, but don’t let him be there!

Mine also skips letters, and this problem can be solved. You just need to work harder. But taking certificates and living in peace is, alas, not an option.

We do not go to Russian in class, but study individually during the hours when the class has Russian. Everyone is happy - the child, the teacher, and we, the parents.