Dyslexia
Overview
Dyslexia is a common learning difficulty that mainly causes problems with reading, writing and spelling.
Symptoms
Signs of dyslexia usually become apparent when a child starts school and begins to focus more on learning how to read and write. A person with dyslexia may: read and write very slowlyconfuse the order of letters in wordsbe confused by letters that look similar and write letters the wrong way round (such as "b" and "d")have poor or inconsistent spellingunderstand information when told verbally, but have difficulty with information that's written downfind it hard to carry out a sequence of directionsstruggle with planning and organisation But people with dyslexia often have good skills in other areas, such as creative thinking and problem solving. Read more about thesymptoms of dyslexia.
Causes
People with dyslexia find it difficult to recognise the different sounds that make up words and relate these to letters. Dyslexia isn't related to a person's general level of intelligence. Children and adults of all intellectual abilities can be affected by dyslexia. The exact cause of dyslexia is unknown, but it often appears to run in families. It's thought certain genes inherited from your parents may act together in a way that affects how some parts of the brain develop during early life.