Dyslexia In Adults: Common Characteristics And Symptoms
Specific learning disorders make it difficult for affected children to cope with academic tasks; where they must learn to read, write and calculate to meet the first challenges that the educational system poses to them.
Such childhood problems can generate deep consequences on an emotional level if they are not detected in time or intervened by a multidisciplinary team, lasting until adulthood (but transforming as demands change).
In this article we will address the way dyslexia is expressed in adults one of the most frequent diagnoses in this category, and how it affects work or other relevant areas of your life (family, friendship, etc.).
Dyslexia is a disorder that usually begins during childhood (developmental subtype), although it sometimes debuts later in life (acquired subtype) as a result of severe head trauma or a stroke. At a clinical level it is expressed as a difficulty limited to reading and/or writing (omission, addition or substitution of letters), although sometimes problems in mathematical calculation also occur (dyscalculia).
Three specific types of dyslexia have been identified : phonological (difficulty reading long, novel, infrequent words or pseudowords), superficial (good reading of pseudowords but with a tendency to make errors due to omission/substitution of letters and confusion of homophonous words) and deep (affectation of the phonological and visual, with errors in function words, semantic mistakes and problems in reading pseudowords).
Below we will see the main symptoms that can occur in adults with dyslexia, many of which are usually an extension of those experienced during childhood (in developmental dyslexias). It is essential to keep in mind that In many cases the diagnosis was not received in childhood
1. Work difficulties
One of the common problems in adults with dyslexia is the difficulty in adapting to jobs that require a significant administrative burden The preference is made explicit for those positions oriented towards manual/automated activities, as opposed to those that require greater attention to multiple demands or the writing of texts with which to correct the company’s bureaucratic demands.
It is for this reason that they often fear promotions in which responsibility may oscillate from one side to the other, since an enormous distrust of their own abilities has usually been established when they involve reading or composing texts. This situation can lead to the loss of internal promotion opportunities, with which they would improve their quality of life and perceive their efforts in their careers as rewarded.
2. Self-esteem problems
Adults with dyslexia often have a significant erosion of self-esteem associated with poor performance on various tasks , which is accentuated in cases in which a diagnosis was not received during childhood. This fact is due to the fact that, when the problem has been detected in time, errors are usually attributed to the learning disorder itself and not to other causes that could compromise one’s own image (limited intelligence, laziness, etc.).
Some adults with dyslexia had to endure teasing from their peers for having difficulties reading or writing correctly, and there are even cases in which teachers contributed to the decline in the perception that they had about themselves and their ability as children (due to lack of knowledge of the disorders that can affect learning ability). These experiences of shame, primitive because of the time of life in which they took place, They can make the adult question their intelligence and grow up amid insecurities that negatively shape their self-esteem.
The situation paves the way for mood and anxiety disorders, as has been consistently found in scientific studies on this matter. These comorbidities, as we saw, are more common among adults with dyslexia who were never diagnosed throughout childhood.
3. Reading difficulty
Adults with dyslexia have difficulty reading, as they often report that the letters seem to “move or even vibrate”, compromising the understanding of longer or shorter texts (the person would “skip” a line or even repeat the one they just read). . All of this is accentuated when the typography or color of the letters and words alternate In fact, they usually have a clear preference for sans serif typefaces (which use the most basic strokes, without flourishes or ornaments).
The rhythm of reading is also altered, both “out loud” and mentally , so they require more time than the average person to study a document. Clumsiness may appear during pronunciation, so that the syllables that make up each word are excessively stressed (altering fluency) and punctuation marks are ignored or exaggerated. It is an erratic and forced reading, which requires the investment of so many resources that it limits the ability to remember what has been read.
It is very common that the person must resort to rereading passages or paragraphs that they had previously reviewed; especially when they contain technical terms, neologisms, foreign words, polysyllables or infrequent words. All of this means that it is particularly difficult to extract the central idea from any more or less extensive text, as well as to separate what is relevant from what is not. Writing a summary is often an insurmountable challenge for people who suffer from severe cases of dyslexia.
A final difficulty that is usually detected in reading refers to problems knowing how the sound of certain letters is articulated based on grammatical rules For example, the letter “c” can be pronounced soft (plot) or strong (rock), depending on the vowel it accompanies (“e” or “i” in the first case and “a”, “o” or “u” in the second). There could be difficulty choosing the most appropriate sound automatically during reading.
4. Absence of reading habit
The majority of adults with dyslexia report notable difficulties in reading, as this is the core symptom of the disorder. Many indicate that the problem dates back to the first years of life , despite the fact that no diagnosis or evaluation was carried out. That is why they were never able to consolidate a reading habit, preferring activities that could arise spontaneously and without much conscious effort. That is, recreational activities that did not represent a fight against one’s own adversity.
Literature is very rarely a hobby of the dyslexic adult, who prefers short texts to long novels or novels with a convoluted plot. This fact It is not at all related to the ability to understand information , but is associated with the format through which it is recorded and accesses the nervous system for subsequent processing. Receiving the same data through auditory channels, or in the form of images, is remembered more accurately and for a longer time.
5. Problems in written communication
People with dyslexia have problems when writing, generally doing so slowly and using handwriting that lacks aesthetic sense. Many times there is confusion in the stroke of letters whose shape is very similar or has a mirror relationship (such as “d” and “b” or “q” and “p”), which can also happen in their reading (especially when they are shown isolated and not as part of words). This slowness in writing makes writing texts perceived as a laborious or impossible task.
Adults with dyslexia They may experience difficulties when copying from dictation, that is, when listening and writing simultaneously This phenomenon is due to the fact that language processing requires such a high volume of cognitive resources that divided attention cannot be managed when several stimuli of a verbal nature compete with each other (writing, listening and/or reading at the same time and correctly). ). This phenomenon becomes evident in childhood, in dictation tasks that take place in the academic context.
Finally, spelling is also frequently affected (especially unvoiced letters or letters that sound similar when pronounced). You can frequently detect in their written products the omission of words within sentences, or even letters within words, which makes them difficult to read and understand. It is common that, if they have the need to write in the workplace, these errors motivate complaints from colleagues.
6. Difficulty in left/right discrimination
Many people with dyslexia, as adults, have difficulty identifying quickly (without thinking too much) which of the two sides of their body is the left and which is the right, or on which of these two sides an object is located in relation to a object. central point.
The symptom does not occur in all cases or with the same severity , nor is it exclusive to people with dyslexia. Only in a very exceptional way can the sense of “up” and “down” be compromised, which happens in cases where spatial vision is profoundly altered (orientation, understanding of maps, etc.).
Likewise, there are studies that have detected that people with dyslexia tend to process verbal stimuli that are presented in the left half of their perceptual field more slowly than readers without this disorder (approximately 15 milliseconds). All of this suggests a hypofunction of the parietal lobe of the right hemisphere, since we must remember that the detection of stimuli in any hemifield is processed contralaterally.
The majority of adults with dyslexia communicate verbally without difficulty, but there is a percentage of them who also have problems in this area. The most common are the delay in responding to the questions asked (as if they think about what they are going to say for too long) and reluctance to speak in public.
This last impediment is usually the result of an emotional conflict caused by teasing from schoolmates when reading aloud.
Reciting poetry is especially difficult for adults with dyslexia, especially when it requires improvisation , because they have problems finding assonant or consonant rhymes. This is accentuated by the fact that the last syllables of the words are the most difficult to pronounce correctly, but also the most relevant to giving a poem metrical meaning.
The beauty of a verbal stimulus (which is the object of poetry) is relegated to a second order of importance in contrast to formal aspects.
8. Sequential planning problems
Adults with dyslexia have problems organizing information sequentially, that is, stringing together fragments of verbal discourse in a serial manner. Instead, they tend to make non-linear evaluations that consider the entire message, which contributes to the presentation of unconventional mental processing strategies which have often been described in the literature as a potential strong point in dyslexics (creativity, divergent thinking or “out of the box” reasoning).
However, such difficulty in sequencing can have some negative consequences on daily life, namely: forgetting appointments (which is usually part of what has come to be called prospective memory, but is really an executive function), problems to understand several instructions at the same time (divided attention) and disorganization (since there is difficulty prioritizing and ranking tasks).
9. Attentional problems
Attention problems are common in adults with dyslexia, and They are usually referred to as an inability to maintain focus for a long time or a substantial distraction
It is also noted that irrelevant stimuli attract excessive attention, so that it becomes difficult to dedicate sustained effort to a message if it competes with many verbal stimuli at the same time (such as in a cafeteria where many voices are heard around). .
10. Prevalence of visual skills
People with dyslexia may discover over time that they process verbal information better when they manage to structure it through schemes or other resources that provide it with visual nuances, and that also evoke images more accurately than words. This makes it easier for them to remember others by their face than by their name and that it is difficult for them to learn new concepts.
