There is no single pattern of difficulty that affects all dyslexic people. Adyslexic person might have any of the following problems: She might see some letters as backwards or upside down; She might see text appearing to jump around on a page; She might not be able to tell the difference between letters that look similar inshape such as o and e and c ; She might not be able to tell the difference between letters that have similarshape but different orientation, such as b and p and d and q ; The letters might look all jumbled up and out of order; The letters and words might look all bunched together; The letters of some words might appear completely backwards, such as the wordbird looking like drib ; The letters and words might look o.k., but the dyslexic person might get a severeheadache or feel sick to her stomach every time she tries to read; She might see the letters o.k., but not be able to sound out words -- that is, notbe able to connect the letters to the sounds they make and understand them; She might be able to connect the letters and sound out words, but not recognizewords she has seen before, no matter how many times she has seen them -- eachtime she would have to start fresh; She might be able to read the words o.k. but not be able to make sense of orremember what she reads, so that she finds herself coming back to read thesame passage over and over again. A dyslexic person could have any of the abovesymptoms -- or none ! It is possible for a dyslexic person to be able to read verywell, yet find it extremely difficult or impossible to write or spell . Sometimes thewriting problem is called 'dysgraphia' instead of 'dyslexia' - but we find that oftenthese symptoms stem from the same underlying causes as dyslexia.It is important to understand that when a dyslexic person *sees* letters orwords reversed or mixed up, there is usually nothing wrong with her eyes. Theproblem is in the way the mind interprets what the eyes see -- ...
