Imagine a ten-year-old walking to school, along the route she has walked for the past five years. When she gets to the corner at the end of her road she glances at her hands, knowing she has to turn towards the hand wearing a watch. At the next corner she looks expectantly to the left, where she knows she will see the school building. It isn't there. Puzzled, she turns to the right, spots the school and goes in. This could be the private world of a child who has dyslexia.
It is a condition that affects one in ten children. Dyslexia goes far beyond difficulty with spelling. Although its causes are not clear, there is some evidence that the brains of dyslexics do not cross-connect in the same way as those of other people. This means that information is processed in a different way and can lead to problems in some areas, while being an advantage in others. The most obvious difficulty is the trouble that many dyslexics experience in learning to read and write. This is because they may find it difficult to link a written symbol with a particular sound. It is not the same as just being bad at spelling, although that is often a symptom.
Dyslexia is a lifelong condition and so it will affect a child from birth.
It can never be cured, although many dyslexics learn strategies that reduce its effects. It is normally diagnosed when a child starts school and shows difficulty with literacy, but there are aspects of dyslexia that can be seen at a younger age, which a nanny can watch out for.
Many dyslexic children have difficulty with spatial awareness and may not understand concepts such as 'over', 'under' and 'beside', which means the child may have problems learning to tie shoelaces or do jigsaws. They may also find it difficult to carry out tasks requiring sequencing skills - for example, the child may put on his shoes before his socks.
If you find yourself getting exasperated with a child who 'never listens', it could be that they have trouble remembering instructions, particularly lists. If a child has these problems then an instruction such as, 'Please get your jumper from the living room and put it on top of your chest of drawers' could be almost impossible to follow. Not only would the child be confused by the meaning of 'on top', they might get the order wrong and go to their bedroom first. By that time they would be totally confused, since they couldn't find the jumper and might have forgotten the details of the original instruction anyway!
Many dyslexics are right-handed but left-footed, or vice versa. This can mean that they seem clumsy or awkward when taking part in sports 'the wrong way round'. It can also have other effects. For example, I have come across several dyslexics who always eat with their knife and fork in the 'wrong'
hands, one of whom told me that when she was a child she was sure she would miss her mouth if she used the other hand!
Dyslexia, dyspraxia and dyscalculia can go together, so if a child has been diagnosed with one of these, it is a good idea to keep an eye out for the others. Dyscalculia is similar to dyslexia, but causes problems with number work. The child may well show similar difficulties in spatial awareness and sequencing, as well as trouble with grasping abstract concepts such as time. They will have problems in any mathematical situation, such as counting how many plates to put on the table.
Dyspraxia, like dyslexia, occurs in up to one in ten people, with boys being four times more likely to be affected than girls. As it causes problems with organising movement, an affected child may seem very clumsy.
A baby might bottom-shuffle instead of crawling because they can't co-ordinate both arms and legs together. The child will probably avoid games that require fine motor skills and may reach development milestones later than expected. They are likely to run, eat and play messily or clumsily. Children with dyspraxia may not develop a dominant hand until they are six or seven, so don't be surprised if they swap and change.
There are many things a nanny can do at home to help a dyslexic child.
Indeed, these suggestions will benefit most children and should not be restricted to those with dyslexia. Dr Mich Page, an international education and training consultant specialising in educational deviance, recommends having lots of fun with songs, rhymes and poetry to help the child get used to listening to the sounds, tone and rhythm of words. Thinking about what words sound like will help when the child eventually comes to matching symbols to sounds. Make up silly rhymes to pass the time in the car and sing in the bath - any fun thing to get the child using language.
If the child is old enough to be learning to read and write at school, it is important to be consistent at home. Ask the teacher what method the school uses to teach reading and any special help that your charge is getting, then use the same method when you help with reading at home. But, as Dr Page says, 'At all costs, keep the pressure off - there is no magic age at which a child should or can learn to read.' Dr Page herself didn't read fluently until she was 13 years old and it didn't stop her getting a PhD! Try to make reading as fun as possible, continue to read aloud as long as the child wants you to, and find lots of books about subjects they are interested in.
There a few tricks which can help a lot of children. Because of the cross-connections in the brain of a child with dyslexia, they often have difficulty filtering out all the other things going on around them. It is as if their minds are constantly too busy to read. One way of countering this is to cover up the child's non-dominant eye. Strange as it may sound, you only actually read with one eye, so by covering up the other eye you will cut down on distractions. This sometimes makes quite a dramatic difference and children can then read fairly easily. Doing reading and number work to music can also help. Music like Bach and Mozart occupies the primitive part of the brain and leaves the rest free to get on with reading. Coloured paper can help too. Print writing with black ink on yellow paper and use pink paper for numbers or diagrams. Nobody knows why this works, but it does!
Of course, play is the most important thing for any child. Make sure that all children have plenty of time to play, following their own ideas, and do not spend every minute doing reading practice. Include lots of arts and crafts, music and movement and practical activities like gardening or cooking. This, hopefully, will help children to develop skills in other areas and keep them from 'learning to fail' or thinking they can't do anything right. All of these activities will also help to develop skills in movement, music and number work for a child with dyscalculia or dyspraxia.
As with using poetry for a dyslexic child, focus on having fun - not on producing a perfect result.
Children with dyslexia may show a wonderful ability to solve problems.
Because they think slightly differently, they can often see a new solution to an old problem, and they make good engineers and computer technicians.
They can also be very creative and come up with wonderful stories, if the barrier of having to write them down is removed. As with any child, dyslexics may love sports, an area where developing skills will allow them to excel.
Any child, with or without a specific condition, has skills and areas of weakness. It is important not to think of a child as having a problem just because they learn differently from others. Think instead of the problem being that the usual teaching methods and expectations are simply inappropriate for this child; it is those things that need to change, and not the child. None of these conditions affects, or is linked to, intelligence. Dyslexia, dyspraxia and dyscalculia occur across the full range of intelligence and there is no reason why a child should not one day attend university and progress as well in life as anyone else.
Lorna Clark is a nanny in Ipswich
