In Mind Publications, Dr. Vijai P. Sharma described several varieties:
Literal dyslexia, also referred to as "letter blindness," causes a person to have difficulty identifying letters, matching uppercase letters with lowercase, naming letters, or matching sounds with the corresponding letters.
Word dyslexia may result in the ability to read individual letters of a word but not the word itself. Sufferers may read a word partially, or read a word without understanding its meaning. For example, a person may read the word "lice" as "ice" or as "like."
Phonological dyslexia causes difficulty in converting letters to sound. People with this type of dyslexia may be able to read words already familiar to them, but will have trouble with unfamiliar words. They may also misread non-words or groups of letters as a real word that looks similar.
Neglect dyslexia causes a person to neglect either the left or the right side of words. This problem is particularly troublesome when reading longer words. Take, for example, the word "alphabetically." People with this form of dyslexia will miss some of the first few letters and may read it as "betically."
Semantic dyslexia causes distortion of words’ meanings. People with this type of dyslexia may incorrectly read a word because of the confusion in the meaning of the given word. People with this flavor of dyslexia may see an antonym, synonym, or a subordinate of a word. Examples include reading “dog” as “cat” or “fox,” “twist” as “twisted,” or “buy” as “bought.”
Spelling dyslexia causes difficulty reading all types of words because some tend to read words one letter at a time, even if the words are short and familiar. Spelling dyslexics read very slowly and are hesitant, especially when reading long words. They may take up to a second to read each additional letter as compared to a normal reader’s 30 milliseconds.
Dyslexia without dysgraphia is characterized by difficulty reading but not in writing. It is sometimes called "pure dyslexia." It may cause problems when performing written arithmetic because of mixed text and numbers, but there may be no problems performing spoken arithmetic. This type of dyslexia is difficult to identify because the sufferer may have average oral language skills and may write and spell orally without difficulty.
Dyslexia with dysgraphia, often called "deep dyslexia," causes people problems when writing letters and words, comprehending words’ meanings, merging letter sounds, and pronouncing words. This is the dyslexia type that is most difficult to deal with. People with this type of dyslexia require the most help with education and career planning. |
