2023-09-22 23:00:00
Florent was a lively little boy and always smiling. Until he entered primary school… Very quickly, he fell behind the children in his class. His teacher thought he was “airheaded”. His big brother thought he was “bad” when he struggled to read a few simple words. His grandmother, who looks following him on Wednesdays, was exasperated by what she considered to be bad will. In a few months, Florent’s life became so complicated that he began to frown. His mother saw it as the start of a downward spiral. She inquired, she consulted and the diagnosis was made. Florent has an invisible handicap: he is dyslexic. This Saturday, Arte is interested in “Dyslexia, a poorly understood disorder”.
A different brain
It is estimated that 2 to 7% of children suffer from dyslexia. What is it exactly? A reading and writing disorder. A dyslexic person reads slowly and hesitantly, mixes up syllables and lines, makes many spelling mistakes… It was a German ophthalmologist who first described dyslexia in the 1880s. For almost of a century, we will therefore associate this learning difficulty with a vision problem. We had to wait for the arrival of MRI for us to understand that dyslexia is no more a visual disorder than an intellectual disability. Brain imaging shows that certain regions of the brain function differently in children with dyslexia.
At the deciphering stage
Dyslexia is a problem with automatic reading. When a child learns to read, he begins by deciphering letters, syllables and words. His reading becomes more fluid when he begins to acquire automatisms. In adulthood, these automatisms allow even great readers to read diagonally. But the dyslexic child does not manage to acquire these automatisms, so that they always remain somewhere at the deciphering stage. This is probably a problem with neural connections, but researchers have not yet been able to pin down the causes. For a long time, there has also been talk of an involvement of genetics, and therefore of heredity. This hypothesis seems to be confirmed. Notably thanks to a large study carried out last year by the University of Edinburgh on more than a million people, including 50,000 dyslexics. Researchers have identified forty-two genes that are linked to dyslexia. They hope this will contribute to a better understanding of this learning disorder.
Specific support
It is difficult to manage a disorder that is not yet well understood. However, early management is essential to avoid the downward spiral that Florent’s mother feared. The learning difficulty can in fact lead to teasing, harassment, school phobia, a loss of self-confidence, withdrawal, depression, etc. As soon as dyslexia is diagnosed, the child can be taken in charge, in particular by a speech therapist, in order to remedy his learning disability. Adaptation of class work is also essential. Since 2018, all schools in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation must provide support for students with specific needs.
This article appeared in Le Télépro on 21/9/2023
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