Learning Difficulties Dossier: Dyslexia

Learning Difficulties Dossier: Dyslexia

Decoding is the ability to recognize words and in addition to being one of the two most important processes of reading, their domination implies knowing how to discriminate and identify words in isolation forming groups and above all have the ability to identify each word as a formspelling with meaning and also attributing a pronunciation. In order to decode we must understand how graphic symbols are related to sounds and acquiring the word reading procedure. Readers with difficulties generally fail in the use of letters as signs to decode words and access their meaning, words recognition, it must be an automatic procedure how much less attention resources we use in low -level operations, the greater the capacity will beof execution of the processes of a higher level.

Reading ability needs a prolonged effort and many hours of practice, since it is a complex activity that requires a high degree of abstraction, in order to carry out this task, the text provides different types of signals according to Gelzheiser and Clark (1991).

The first type would be the graphic symbols, they represent the sounds as long as individuals know the necessary correspondence (RCGF) can interpret them, that is, it is important to know the graphic signs and also their phonological correspondences, that is why in the initial education ofReading pays close attention to letters and their differences to see discrimination and identification of them by children.

Reading always begins with a visual input, visual perceptual aspects are not considered determiningTask according to Windows (1991) These would be:

• Precision in visual perception
• Visual analysis
• Visual discrimination
• Visual memory
• Space and directional viso skill
• Motor skills
• And linguistic ability (phonological processing of words).

The following signals would be the contextuals, each word of a text is surrounded by other words, these work as signs to help decode others, if a word does not recognize you can guess it by the context.

Finally the third type of signals would be the structural ones, it is a series of characteristic conventions of written language, such as that it reads and writes from left to right. Expert readers know and use all this type of signals, in general, the failure of children who fail in learning resides in the first type of signals, since they mostly have problems with decoding words, and acompetent reading without a fluid decoding (automated).

It is very important to focus on how the reading system in adult readers works, when these are with written words visually analyze them (physical features of the graphics) and identify them, the displacement of the eyes, as Javal (1879) observed noIt is done following a regular line, but the eyes move from left to right by rapid jumps called.

The information goes to the sensory memory called iconic memory, immediately later to the short -term memory, where the operations destined to recognize the letters and visual patterns are carried out as words.

The words are recognized through the data stored in the long -term memory, what is a mental lexicon where the semantic and spelling phonological and spelling linguological knowledge of the words we already know are found, together these processes constitute what is called lexical access processTo those who add the pronunciation in the case of reading aloud.

There are two procedures one consists, in direct and visual lexical reading in which words are directly associated with their meaning, recognition is global and immediate since words have previously been stored in the mental lexicon, and in the second processing,indirect or phonological subléxico, the conversion of words into a sound will be carried out by applying the correspondence rules grapheme phoneme. Therefore uses an absolutely necessary phonological assembly in the case of this reading is generally used to read pseudopalabras or unknown words.

These forms of reading are not independent mechanisms since skilled reading implies both, they would be two synergistic parts of the same process since they are intimately connected and depend on three types of information about the words that the reader already has, such as semantic phonological representationsand spelling (Adams 1990). This knowledge is highly interactive, they have multiple interrelations that are acquired with linguistic experiences.

Spelling knowledge refers to the recognition of letters, semantic information to the knowledge of the meaning of words, and phonological to the stored information about the auditory representation of words. This knowledge is simultaneously needed for the recognition of words, the contribution of each of them being greater or less.Therefore the acquisition of reading will depend on the operation of the phonological assembly, since it is the only procedure to generate identification of new words that have never been read or previously processed. In conclusion, the main effort of the initial learning of reading, without neglecting the promotion of the visual route, must be directed to the acquisition of indirect or phonological procedure, which is the key to achieving a competent reading, nowFor many children they are called reading difficulties although we can distinguish different types.

Referring to dyslexic, we find different types, acquired dyslexia and evolutionary dyslexias, the first are people who were readers, after an accident or brain injury they have lost this skill. The evolutionary for their part, include people who experience difficulties in the acquisition of reading, the main difference between the two is that in the first there is an accident or a brain involvement that explains the alteration.

There are different types of dyslexia acquired depending on the type of errors that are manifested in patients, they all have in common that they have injuries in the dominant cerebral hemisphere.

Evolutionary dyslexias are characterized by the presence of normal intelligence, in addition to excluding other problems such as emotional alterations, disadvantaged contexts, lack of educational opportunities … These are announced by a deficiency in learning the learning of reading. The conception of evolutionary dyslexias has varied over time, for a long time unitary syndrome were considered, it was known as a “congenital blindness for words”, now more currently the research has highlighted the importance of psycholinguistic aspects, both bothIn development as reading acquisition difficulties. Evolutionary dyslexic do not form a homogeneous population, their failure arises from the impossibility of developing one or two of the mechanisms we use to develop the reading system, in addition the evolutionary dyslexia will be divided into three phonological, superficial and mixed groups.

According to the neurobiological perspective, genetic and neuroanatomic studies on the existence of genetic component in dyslexia, it is observed in the dyslexia itself occurs more in boys than in girls, that is why many jobs were carried out using family history and concordance studiesGenetics in twins. In these studies, it was observed that if there are genetic concordances since in dicigotic twins it is around 30 % the probability that if one has the other as well and in monozygotic twins it rises to 85 or 100 %.

Other studies put more emphasis on neurosomatic alterations and their relationship with dyslexia, although these studies are currently in the expansion, due to technological advances, interest deepening more in perspectives such as psycholinguistics that proposes indications referring to intervention from psycholinguistics,linguistic problems can be placed in two categories, spoken language processing and phonmic knowledge (Defior 1993).

Within the first category in 1991 distinguishes four different levels:

• Fine speech perception skills that are the ones that make it possible to distinguish words that are very similar to each other
• Vocabulary skills mainly rapid denomination to immediately access the meaning of words
• Adequate short -term verbal memory
• Ability to detect syntactic and semantic structures in phrases and sentences.

The bad readers will be poor in all these aspects of linguistic processing, although the reading experience itself facilitates the mastery of these aspects according to Stanovich (1986).

It also occurs with the domain of phonological knowledge or phonological consciousness, this plays a very important role in the acquisition and development of literacy.

In summary, bad readers show a wide language deficit inventory that are generally interdependent, although in general they coincide in common phonological problems.

Phonological skills imply knowledge and ability to analyze and manipulate elements that build language and that are related to word literacy, these skills allow learning the phonological structure of words in addition to using phonological information in oral and written language and written language.

Linguistic or metalinguistic consciousness is the ability to reflect on formal aspects of the language leaving aside the communicative function, it is essential to master the reading ability to understand the spelling system and the structure of the phonologically speaking language.

The training of these skills enhances the acquisition of literacy not only in poor readers, but also the normal readers, although exclusively phonological training is not enough, we must accompany it with teaching graphemes.

Reading, like difficulties in general, cannot be evaluated through a general diagnosis, but should be detailed where the difficulties reside, so it is necessary to exactly register the answers that the child provides and determine the operation of the two routesAccess to the lexicon.

We can distinguish between general and specific tests in the first group there are a lot of tests in the market valid for the prognosis of dyslexia.

It is necessary for the intervention, seek procedures that improve word recognition skills, design strategies aimed at both the establishment of the direct and indirect road and automation.

It is important to highlight procedures that can be taken into account in the intervention towards these difficulties such as phonological skills training, special programs focused on the teaching of RCGF, the repeated reading method, the global words recognition training, teaching, teachingWith graphic support, and the use of computer programs.