Does your child reverse letters or numbers when reading or writing? Are simple words misspelled? Is punctuation ignored when reading out loud? These may, in a school aged child, indicate a reading disorder called dyslexia. Children who have dyslexia are unable to understand the letters or words that they see. The disorder is not a visual problem. The brain is unable to translate images received from the eyes into meaningful language.

Dyslexia occurs more often in boys than in girls. Family history often shows that one or both parents, an uncle or a cousin has dyslexia. It can initially be noticed as a delay in the age at which a child begins to read. The key symptom is reading at a level that is far below other children of the same age. The child is often normal in other school subjects and areas of ability.

When dyslexia is undetected and untreated, it may lead to the following:
* low self esteem,
* school failure,
* behavior problems,
* delinquency,
* aggression, and
* withdrawal from friends, parents, and teachers.

Common symptoms to look for in dyslexic children include:
* word guessing,
* rotating numbers and letters, such as "9" and "6" or "b" and "d,"
* changing the order of letters in words,
* not looking at all the letters in a word,
* losing the place while reading,
* forgetting common words learned each day,
* reading word for word,
* adding, deleting, or changing words in a sentence, or
* reading slowly.

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