How Do I Know If My Child Is Dyslexic? 5 Tips To Look Out For

How do you know if your child is dyslexic? Well, sometimes finding out the answer to that question isn't as clear-cut as you might think. In this video, we have five tips to help you along with that process.

Hi, we're Nick and Sonja, and this is Dyslexia Journey, where we help parents support their dyslexic child. So, one caveat before we get into the topic of today's video, which is that we are not medical or educational professionals, so there could be something else going on with your child other than dyslexia, and so if you have any questions about that or think that that could be going on, then make sure to consult the appropriate professional.

All right, today we're talking about the important question, does my child have dyslexia, and this question is something that we as parents or caregivers of someone with dyslexia, or might be struggling in school, or might exhibit any difficulties. These, this is something that we all face, and we've probably all Googled, and we've come across a multitude of pieces of information out there about it, but it's still a question that is actually surprisingly hard to answer, and there is a lot of conflicting information out there.

And so, we're obviously, in this episode, we're not going to be able to really help you diagnose your child, but we can try to sift through a little bit of the information out there to try to help you make sense of it a little better, and also give you five tips that really helped us in identifying the dyslexia that our daughter has. And do we want to go into, maybe we can tell them just a little bit about why it was difficult in our journey before we get into the five tips.

Yes, so the reason why it was particularly difficult for us is because it turns out there are different kinds of dyslexia, and this is something that we were not familiar with before dealing with it with our daughter. I think when most people who aren't intimately familiar with dyslexia think about it, they tend to think of the, I guess, stereotypical type of dyslexia, which is phonological dyslexia. And that is, and again, I'm not an educational expert, but that is the sort of more traditional way that people think about dyslexia, of just having trouble with the actual phonemes, with the actual sounds of words, and particularly translating that from reading the letters to making those phonemes, those sounds.

But there are other kinds of dyslexia, and so our daughter was actually diagnosed with surface dyslexia, and I should caveat that, which is that to my understanding, that's not an official diagnosis, but that is the term that the educational psychologist who diagnosed her used. There's another term that you might have heard that people have adopted, which again, I believe is not an official diagnosis, which is called stealth dyslexia. And that cuts more to the idea that people with non-traditional forms of dyslexia can go undetected for long.

They perhaps can read to some extent, maybe even at grade level, but they are still suffering from dyslexia, it just manifests differently in them than it does in some other children. So I think the key point here is that there are different ways in which dyslexia manifests, which is why it is often very confusing in trying to figure out if your child actually has dyslexia. Right, yeah, so that's one of the reasons, and of course there can be other individual differences that might make it tricky to tell as well.

You know, I think we've talked in another video about how sometimes they are compensating or something like that. But let's go ahead and get into the five tips that helped us as we were sort of, I guess, assessing our daughter, sort of how she was doing with reading or not in school. So the first thing that we noticed was that her oral expression, so when you're talking to her, having conversations about different topics, was really, really strong.

And it didn't at all match her ability that was going on with the reading. So there was definitely a mismatch between oral expression and written or reading expression. I mean, at that point, especially thinking when she was around kindergarten, first grade, I mean, she wasn't able to read much at all in terms of trying to figure out new words and that kind of thing. And it definitely wasn't about unfamiliarity, because I remember at a conference, they were not, you know, the teachers weren't worried yet because students start reading at different rates and that kind of thing.

But, you know, we were discussing just sort of where she was at with the reading. And then she made a point to say, oh, but she's so articulate. She sounds like I'm talking to someone much older and she uses lots of big words. I mean, I think she had picked up big words from talking to people and adults. And so it's not to say that children should be able to read necessarily those big words, but it is kind of a tip off when there's a mismatch between what they're able to say out loud and how they express and any of their reading and writing.

Yeah. And to add to that, the second tip, the second sort of indication that you might look for that might tip you off, that your child might have dyslexia, is kind of an extension of that, which is if there's just in general a mismatch. There's a difference between how smart or intelligent or just engaged they seem to be outside of school and outside of an academic setting versus their performance in school.

And it doesn't mean, and this is the key point, I think, is that it doesn't mean that they have to be doing very badly in school. They could be doing grade level in school and still be a mismatch between their capability, their intelligence, and what they're able to demonstrate in school because of that dyslexia. And I think the sad truth of our educational system is that children who are performing at grade level are not necessarily going to get noticed as having a problem, even if their potential, even if their capability is a lot higher than that.

I mean, the children who get noticed in school are generally the ones who are doing very badly or the ones who are doing very well. And if a child is getting by and not making waves, and I don't mean this as a criticism of teachers. Teachers are very busy. They are very overloaded with 30 kids in their class or whatever, and they're doing their best. Well, and they might be paying attention to a child in a different way, right?

Right. Because there's all those other factors that teachers are paying attention to with the socio-emotional learning and just giving them other support, too. Right. Right. But I think it's important to realize that a child who has maybe more like self-dyslexia, like our daughter does, is going to be able to compensate and going to be able to do okay in school. It's just that when you talk to her or you observe her, you can tell that her capability is much higher than what she's able to demonstrate in that school setting.

All right. Tip number three is one that might feel a little more obvious. It's when your child doesn't demonstrate very much interest in learning to read or in reading. Maybe they read a bit already, and they aren't very interested in reading. And sometimes, particularly as a child gets a little older, this is called being a reluctant reader. And there can be other reasons for this as well. I know some kids just are very active, and they don't want to sit down and take the time to read.

So there can be lots of different reasons for it, which is why it's a fairly general term to say reluctant reader. But I think, again, it's important as one clue in sort of the whole picture of everything to think about if your child, maybe they sit down and really love you to read to them and are very interested in story, but they don't themselves want to read. So that's just one factor also to consider.

Yes. And our fourth tip is that someone with dyslexia sometimes can actually exhibit physical symptoms when they are trying to read or trying to do academic work, either during or after. So, for example, they might complain of headaches when trying to read or after trying to focus all day, or they might complain of stomach aches. The sort of extra focus that it takes as someone with dyslexia can actually manifest physically for some people.

Now, this isn't obviously universal, and not everyone with dyslexia has physical manifestations, and physical manifestations can obviously be signs of other health issues. So if your child is exhibiting physical symptoms, obviously you want to consult with a pediatrician or a medical professional. But it is one possible indication that your child might be suffering from dyslexia. And our final and fifth tip is to trust your own instincts as a parent. So, and this is kind of over the long term, right?

Because it's a journey in trying to figure this out. And so it sort of pulls together everything. You're the one who's getting the big picture. You're the one interacting with your child more regularly and in a more focused way than maybe some other professionals are able to if they have lots of students that they're interacting with. And because it's not a clear-cut picture to anyone necessarily, including, you know, the school officials, for example, you're the one whose gut instinct is probably going to be correct in the case of your child.

And so it's important if you just feel like something's off to keep investigating. And, you know, perhaps like we were talking about at the beginning, there's different kinds of dyslexia. Perhaps try even a different kind of assessment or, you know, go different routes to try to figure out what's going on. Or maybe there's even something else involved, right? Other than dyslexia. And in that case, you'd want to be following your gut instinct that something's off as well.

That is our fifth and final tip to make sure to trust your instincts. It's something we certainly had to do. And it took quite a few years before our daughter was diagnosed. Okay, so we've talked about five tips for possibly identifying whether your child has dyslexia. And the obvious question here is, okay, now I think my child might have dyslexia. What's the next step? And that is obviously going to vary depending on where you live, whether you're in the United States like we are, or a different country, or even it's going to vary by what school district you're in, what type of school you're in, what resources are around you.

So that's not something that we have time to get into in this show. We'll talk about it in many future episodes in much more detail, but we will leave some links in the show description. A couple of resources that we found useful, some descriptions about different kinds of dyslexia, as well as some self-assessments that you can go through. So hopefully this was helpful, and we'd love it if you would like, share, and subscribe.

And we'd love it if you comment below and let us know anything you'd like to share about your own journey in helping your child be assessed for dyslexia. Thank you.