There are many sites dedicated to supporting children who are dyslexic and who signpost to excellent services – this page briefly explores the mechanism for generating the potential negative impacts of dyslexia on the child

Dependant on their experiences children will have different views of their dyslexia, and as with most things in life there is a balance, often failures in education, peer group pressure, and ultimately employment issues cause the dyslexic to withdraw and accept their lot. However others will focus on their strengths either directly or indirectly and this will equip them to achieve great things.

When the child is labelled with the trends visible in the dyslexic:

Unable to read, Unable to write, Unable to spell, Unable to punctuate, Poor with grammar, Poor with numbers, Bad at Maths, Unable to communicate effectively, Can’t learn, Difficulty with speech, Difficulty working with distractions, Disorganised……….

If this is reinforced on a daily basis by their experiences, and what their respected peers are telling them, it’s hardly surprising that in some cases the individual succumbs to the pressure and, as expected by the conditioning, fails to achieve.

Sometimes dyslexic children can turn away from education as an escape mechanism, preferring truancy or disruption to the on-going frustrations and tortures they can perceive in the class room. This can then compound matters, not only are there learning difficulties, but there can be are also significant gaps in education. These gaps would pose problems for the development of any child, not only the dyslexic, but sometimes this absence of education can also be confused with the effects of dyslexia in latter years.

In early childhood when facing the continued onslaught of evidence presented its easy to become victimised by Dyslexia. The understanding does appear to be improving over time, especially within education, but even there still has a significant way to go, but it is only with the advent of DDA that people in employment have now started to look superficially at Dyslexia.

It is the people who have been victimised by their dyslexia that will be in the greatest need of support, to rebuild the years of damage, irrespective of the degree of their Dyslexia.

The impact of their childhood can travel with them into later life and manifest its self in various unexpected ways.

However as the child ages, their skills develop and they start to generate their own bespoke and individualised suite of coping strategies, which can ease the frustrations, but can also allow significant development and progress through education, especially if these coping strategies are suitably supported by reasonable adjustments.

Over time the effects of dyslexia will vary and change.