What are your experiences of dyslexia?

The British Dyslexia Association (BDA) estimates that the condition affects 10% of the population, 4% severely so. We would like to hear from you if you have dyslexia or work with people who do, and to discuss your experiences in an article on the Guardian.

Earlier in October this year’s Dyslexia Awareness Week focused on the early stages of a person with dyslexia’s experience – in particular their assessment. We want to know your experiences of this, but also more broadly whether you have seen changing attitudes or if you feel that people who don’t have dyslexia have misconceptions about it.

You can also get in touch if you work with dyslexia in an educational setting as a teacher or a specialist.

Share your views and experiences

In March, the BDA said it was inundated with calls from primary headteachers who were alarmed about new government spelling tests, which require 10- and 11-year-olds to correctly spell more than 100 key words before they are judged to have reach expected educational standards. Do you have views on this as a parent or teacher?

If you work, do you feel your company is receptive to the third core aim of the BDA – “To enable dyslexic people to achieve their potential in the workplace” – and do you talk about it with your colleagues or manager? Maybe you are at university and receive help? Perhaps you only recently received a diagnosis?

You can fill out our form below, anonymously if you wish, and we will use some of the most interesting in an article in the coming weeks. You can also contribute on behalf of someone else, but please let us know below.

What are your experiences of dyslexia?

"Dyslexia" Is A Meaningless Label And Should Be Ditched

For millions of parents, a dyslexia diagnosis that not only unlocks the door to extra assist, but also enables them to understand why their little one has troubles studying. So it is no shock that a suggestion the phrase is overused and must be ditched has been greeted with howls of protest.

But as soon as the preliminary furore has died down, it is worth questioning whether or not affixing a label tends to make any actual big difference. Possibly we must invest far more time generating positive kids get the help they need than doing work out regardless of whether they fall into a neat class.

The controversy centers on a book co-authored by academics both side of the Atlantic: Julian Elliott, professor of training at Durham University in the U.K., and Elena L. Grigorenko, professor of psychology at Yale in the U.S.

In The Dyslexia Debate, they argue a diagnosis of dyslexia is frequently extremely questionable and the term has turn into a meaningless catch-all that encompasses a broad variety of issues with reading. In addition, the pair argue that parents are often mistaken if they think that a diagnosis will suggest their kids get the aid they want.

Their claims, manufactured public yesterday, rapidly came below assault. The British Dyslexia Association rejected the suggestion that a diagnosis was irrelevant, whilst U.K. campaign group Dyslexia Action insisted that a diagnosis brought substantial benefits. Reaction elsewhere was significantly less temperate, with professors Elliott and Grigorenko broadly pilloried on social media and newspaper comment sections.

Elliott is no stranger to hostile reactions to his perform. When I initial interviewed him, in 2005, it was shortly following he produced comparable claims in a Tv documentary, questioning the worth of the term dyslexia as a way of describing studying problems.

Amongst the messages he obtained then had been emails from mother and father asking if he was accusing their kid of faking it, or if he was suggesting their kid was stupid. One particular claimed, “You are the kind of guy who does untold damage to people who are dyslexic,” although yet another was much more succinct: “You are a harmful man”, it ran.

Amid the sound and fury it is simple to overlook the reality that Elliott is not suggesting that dyslexia itself does not exist.

Scientific studies present that some men and women do have genuine and complicated issues with decoding text and relating sounds in spoken language to written symbols. These have an effect on about one-2% of the population and are imagined to be triggered by one or much more of genetic, immunological or dietary elements. They are also usually linked to issues in sequencing, putting the numbers, months, days of the week in purchase, and telling left and proper apart, as nicely as allergies.

Elliott’s argument is that dyslexia is so misused it encompasses practically any trouble exactly where there is a discrepancy amongst reading functionality and IQ. Even though the numbers involved have not been quantified, an estimated 5-ten% of the population are classed as dyslexic.

But far from assisting young children, a dyslexia diagnosis could get in the way of the targeted support they require. By taking a wide assortment of problems beneath its umbrella, it helps make it tougher to uncover specific solutions for specific issues. The elevation of diagnosis into the essential to unlocking extra assist also disadvantages people who have not been diagnosed, but whose studying issues are just as extreme.

It is entirely understandable that mothers and fathers whose youngsters struggle to go through should appear for an explanation. It is also understandable that they truly feel dyslexia is a better label than the different. For the kids themselves, a diagnosis offers reassurance that they are not ‘stupid’.

But our need to affix a label to studying issues gets in the way of young children receiving the support they want. Rather than wait right up until a youngster has been diagnosed – and then providing them the common interventions provided to dyslexics – we ought to emphasis on making certain help is far more closely tied to their needs. Children who struggle to read need to not need to have a diagnosis prior to they get help.

"Dyslexia" Is A Meaningless Label And Should Be Ditched