There are at least 40 million Americans with dyslexia signs. “Unfortunately a lot of kids with dyslexia, possibly as many as a third, are missed, misdiagnosed or not diagnosed at all,” says Yale scientist Jeffrey R. Gruen M.D. “Now you’ve got a kid who hits fourth or fifth grade and they’re struggling; their self-esteem begins to diminish, and it almost becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you can identify these kids early, by third grade, and get them into an intervention program, you can frequently get them reading up to grade-level, and that effect is long-lasting. That’s a wonderful thing.” Many people make it into adulthood without ever taking a dyslexia test or receiving a diagnosis, even though they have an adult learning disability. Soon, scientists say, they will have an early genetic screening test in place to help people understand their condition as soon as possible.
Some of the current tests for dyslexia include the Beery Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration, Bender Gestalt Test of Visual Motor Perception, Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test, Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (KABC), Kaufman Tests of Educational Achievement (KTEA), Motor-Free Visual Perception Test, Peabody Individual Achievement Tests (PIAT), Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, Test for Auditory Comprehension of Language (TACL), Test of Auditory Perception (TAPS), Test of Visual Perception (TVPS), Visual Aural Digit Span Test (VADS), Wechsler Individual Achievement Tests (WIAT, Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Third Edition (WISC-III) and the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery test. To gather the full picture, doctors and psychologists usually try as many of these tests as they can to assess adult learning disabilities. This is called a “multi-approach” to diagnosis. In addition to these psychoanalytical tests, medical doctors can now perform brain scans using MRI and PET imaging to detect brain anomalies.
Sometimes an adult dyslexia test may reveal other adult learning disabilities. Nonverbal learning disabilities are classified under a different neurological disorder, which shows problems with organization, evaluating and visual-spatial processing. With an auditory or visual processing disorder, a person may see or hear perfectly fine but have a difficult time deciphering. Dysgraphia is a writing disability where a person may be unable to write in cursive, form certain letters or include proper spacing. With dyscalculia, a person may be unable to solve the simplest mathematical problems or understand the most basic math concepts. ADHD anxiety may make a person feel distracted, excitable and unable to concentrate long enough to understand or store information properly.
In most cases, a dyslexia test is done on people who were born with it. Yet, dyslexia may also surface after a stroke or traumatic brain injury. Currently, there is no way to manipulate the brain to change this. However, psychoanalysts say that huge advances can be made for people who take advantage of adults resources like learning centers, special education programs, specialized job training and read books about the various learning styles. One must exercise caution, however, as there are many expensive online tests, software programs and “magic pills” claiming to help adults with dyslexia. In reality, the only help available is community-based and recommended by personal doctors.
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