How Surface Dyslexia Impacts Word Recognition and Reading Disabilities

What is surface dyslexia? This is very common among dyslexia—that is, you know, people can read words, but they don't understand the meaning of the words. That is why what we have to do is, you know, for some special educators, what they usually do is on the door, the door of the home, they'll put a sight word called D-O-O-R. So the student will keep getting reinforced—the object is also there, the word is also there. So this word denotes this object which is behind, something like that, you know. So that is the way we can keep reinforcing things. Okay.

See, dyslexia does not only affect the spelling nature, spelling, learning, education, reading, writing, but it can also affect the career and health. How? We will just look into the next slides. So dyslexia, like many of the neurodiverse peers, dyslexia does present a lot of comorbidities along with it, mostly with anxiety and ADHD.

Dyscalculia is difficulty in mathematics, difficulty in playing with numbers. Dysgraphia is difficulty in writing. These are, like, I would say, very less-known types of specific learning disabilities.

So when we talk about the brain of people with dyslexia, there is a right hemisphere, there is a left hemisphere, and we all know the right hemisphere controls the left part of our body, the left hemisphere controls the right part of our body. The corpus callosum is there, which is the link between the right and left hemisphere—that is less developed, very thin. So that is one finding in the MR brain of them.

So if the child keeps reading the same thing again and again and then is not able to comprehend, we need to ask for help. If the child is really not able to do the assignments on time with the required speed, we need to seek help. And with language difficulty, we need to seek help, and with maths. So these are the signs where we have to get help, because most—some, you know, I would say 50% of people with dyslexia—they can manage without any structured help. They can just—we call them average students, but, you know, they pull along. But almost 50% need help.

Okay, is there any relationship between visual problems, vision problems, and dyslexia? It looks like it is, you know. Our eyeballs, you know—if I'm reading like five lines of a sentence, five lines of a paragraph, when I read the first line, my eyeballs will keep jumping for every word, and when I go to the next line, my eyeballs will be jumping again. But if there is some sluggish eyeball for people and the children, you know, they may get into this very slow and sluggish reading and things like that. So vision problems are a reason. So we need to meet a developmental optometrist or a behavioral optometrist to get the things assessed actually.

So many heavy metals can also, like mercury toxicity, toxicity, can also result in dyslexia in some cases. Here we can see, you know, the MRI. So usually the planum temporale cortical language area—that is the area which is responsible for language in the brain, which is normally larger in the left hemisphere than in the right—but for people with dyslexia, both are the same size. That is what we are seeing. It's almost identical. Left is not slightly bigger.

Several studies have shown that brain activation patterns can be changed. So it is a very hopeful message, right? You know, we can correct it by giving the essential support in terms of different means, which we'll be discussing now.

So dyslexics are less able to convert EFAs to myelin in the brain—you know, essential fatty acids should be converted into myelin so that there will be a good protective coverage for the nerve cells. If that is not there, then cognitive delay will be present. That is why all the Siddha medicines which we give for strengthening the brain substance are ghee-based. We need to give more good cholesterol, good fats.

So visual and auditory symptoms in dyslexia have been related to physical signs consistent with fatty acid deficiency. So, you know, good fatty acids like omega-3 help immensely in the diet of a dyslexia person—vitamin D and omega-3. So almost all the people with dyslexia, if you screen them, you know, they are very low. You know, once you pump them with adequate supplementation, daily recommended allowance, you can see them improving very well in these required domain areas.

Because as I told you earlier, you know, dyslexia can be seen in a lot of adults too. They must have escaped their childhood without being diagnosed, you know. But today, you know, everybody is really scrutinizing, really focusing on each and every aspect of the child. So it is very rare to go undiagnosed these days actually.

So people take a book to read, but they don't finish it at all. Many people, you know, that is one form of the symptom which you can note. Not being able to think what to write—reluctance to write things down, you know, dyslexia sign again, sign of dyslexia. Difficulty with note-taking—things will go in the air. Difficulty with sequences—you know, what is first, what is next. Sequencing, there'll be challenges there. Problems with time management—they'll be often ending up late in their office space and college spaces.

So spatial orientation is a very important thing. Like, you know, see, when—if I drive a cycle in this small narrow road, I should know I should drive in this particular space without hurting myself or others, you know. That is—so spatial orientation is a very important skill for a person. But people with dyslexia find it really difficult. That is why more accidents are caused by people with dyslexia.

In addition to unique brain architecture, people with dyslexia have unusual wiring. Neurons are found in unusual places in the brain and are not as neatly ordered as in non-dyslexic brains. See, why I keep talking about these two, three things repeatedly is many children with dyslexia don't have an advantage of other disabilities. They don't speak for themselves. You know, once you look at them, they look as handsome as other children do. So if you look at them, they don't command your empathy or sympathy or concern. You know what help you require, because we all assume they are doing it on purpose. You know, it is not a disability kind of thing. But dyslexia is a condition which requires help and attention. It is a medical condition. You know, we can't ignore it.

The same thing, you know, like for this word "articulation," they have to really compensate more.

What about the postural stability? The postural stability is very important. I have mentioned a term called hypotonia—the muscle tone will be very poor because of disuse in dyslexic children, most of them. So they are not able to maintain a postural, stable posture while reading or while learning in the classrooms while the teacher is teaching, you know. So they lean on their back too much, or they just lean forward on the desk too much, or they'll be sideways leaning. You know, what happens when there is no postural stability? The receptive capacity automatically goes down. So to build the postural stability, it is very important to work with a lot of sports activities so that their hypotonia, their low muscle tone, can be fixed.

This hypotonia can lead to difficulty in speaking, poor posture, delayed development, weakness, difficulty in swallowing. You know, they eat all day. You know, they don't know how to finish this lunch break in 20 minutes or 30 minutes. They take more than an hour to have their lunch. So they're very slow. Most of them do.

Hypotonia can lead to poor posture, difficulty in eating and speaking, instability. So these are the main physical conditions which can be easily fixed, and then they can help—a very essentially high-order help.

So memory implications—you know, they read, they read, and then they have to read several times. How many times? More than 500 times they have to keep reading the same things. Only then they can comprehend it. That is why this huge amount of overlearning has to happen for people with dyslexia. But there are several techniques called direct instruction. There is a technique, you know—you can, just along with reading, you can make some noises attached to it, a picture attached to it, a color attached to it. So these changes in the reading behavior can help them to become a little faster learners.

Developmental dyslexia may cause vision issues in children because they have to keep reading and then spend more time reading. So it will lead to vision challenges in most of them.

And as we all know, many famous celebrities, famous people—like, we all, I think we know this Thomas Edison, Thomas Alva Edison story, right? The teacher of Thomas Alva Edison has sent a letter to his mother saying that Edison is very much retarded—you know, that is the word he used those days—he's mentally, he does not belong in this school, put him in some special school. But the mother hid that letter from Edison, and then she really invested in working with him, supported him by every means she could provide, and then we know what happened, what came out of it.

So like that, you know, Graham Bell, Walt Disney, Henry Ford—most of them and all these guys, Tom Cruise—dyslexic. Let's write six. So they have a lot of strengths. Like, you know, they have good intuition because they think, overthinking. And then problem-solving skills are there. Innovative thinkers, good troubleshooters. They really know how to cut short and then finish the job, solve the problems. They're excellent with computers, most of them.

When it comes to treatment options, what I would suggest is, as I told you earlier, this postural stability and better tonicity of muscles can be achieved through Abyangam. And there is a Siddha external therapy technique called Podi Murai, a powder massage, that helps immensely in getting the better tone and posture, and structured sports activities for endurance, and eye exercises. These are the very essential part—eye exercises—so that, you know, they can beat the sluggish eyeball condition.

Specific glasses like pinhole glasses are available these days, very specific glasses. It does help from the eyes getting tired very soon, or it's safe for them. Psychotherapy, counselling, specific reading programs like direct instruction, and ghee-based diet—these help immensely.