Definition

The “dyslexia” comes from 2 Ancient Greek words that mean, “can’t read”. It’s not a correct term for the problem because the inability to read is just a symptom of dyslexia.

In Days Gone By…

We used to think that dyslexia was a problem of vision. Dyslexics tend to skip words, reverse the order of words, reverse the order of letters or spin letters around – these actions convinced people that dyslexia was all to do with how dyslexics saw words.

These things are symptoms of dyslexia rather than a cause. Look at the letters below and see how they are actually the same shape. Because people saw a P as a B, everyone thought that this was due to poor vision.

Dyslexia, Now

Today, we know that dyslexia is not a vision problem but a language issue. It is located in a part of the brain that is almost in the dead centre of language use. That area is called the Brodman’s 37 area and is located between the parts of the brain that deal with receptive language and expressive language.

We know that there is no visual therapy that helps dyslexics with dyslexia. A visual therapy might make your child’s eyesight or vision better but it will not deal with dyslexia. Unfortunately, some of the symptoms of dyslexia are also symptoms of other problems and people with little knowledge charge a great deal of money to do the wrong therapy.

Frontrunner Learning Centres use recognised methods – based on research from Macquarie University – to deal with dyslexia. This work is done outside our normal teaching times and has a completely different cost structure. For more information on dyslexia, call your local Centre on 1300 851 062.

What Do I Do After Treatment?

Once the dyslexia has been dealt with, your child’s reading will be much better. Many of the reversals, inversions, misspellings and other problems will be controlled.

However, it’s a little like fixing a broken leg – you need therapy to make sure you can use the leg properly once it’s healed.

The same goes for reading. Once the dyslexia treatment is completed, your child has years of bad habits to change. Comprehension, grammar, syntax, semantics and host of other things suffered while your child suffered. Now it’s time to fix those things.

Is Dyslexia Cured?

Dyslexia is a condition – it’s not a disease. You cannot “cure” dyslexia any more than you can “cure” someone’s height or their running ability. However, you can train the brain to overcome the difficulties associated with dyslexia.

Consider this: If you have one leg shorter than the other, you can control it by wearing a built up shoe. This doesn’t mean that the problem is gone – just controlled.

Our dyslexia treatments are like that – except that no one ever sees the fix on the outside. It’s there in the brain and no one will ever know.

If this sounds like the kind of professionalism you would like to see in your child’s tuition CALL 1300 851 062 or click here to send us a message.