6 Types of Dyslexia?

Have you wondered if your child might have dyslexia? Maybe a teacher suggested it? Or maybe you have an actual diagnosis?

But then you wonder, “What exactly does that mean?”

So you go online, do a search, and end up even more confused?

Well don’t worry, that happens to everyone. That’s because there are actually several types of dyslexia. And to make things worse, the online world likes to fight about which is “The Real” dyslexia.

But my guess is, you just want answers? You want to solve the problem. Figure out how to get through this.  Am I right?

Hi, I’m Samantha from Learning Success and I made this video to give you simple answers. To help you cut through the confusion. So lets do that.

The first step is to understand what the different types of dyslexia are. Step two is being able to recognize the signs of each.  Step three is understanding what to do about them. We'll cover all that in this video.

Parents deserve to have this confusion cleared up. Will you help me with that? Just like and subscribe. That helps get this information out there. And that will help a lot of people.

So let's get started.

The first type of dyslexia is called phonological dyslexia. It's also called dysphonetic dyslexia or auditory dyslexia. Most will tell you that it's also the most common form of dyslexia. That’s not exactly true and I’ll tell you why at the end of this video.

This form of dyslexia is a difficulty in processing sounds. That may be because of difficulties in identifying sounds. Or it could be a challenge in discriminating between different sounds. Or blending sounds, or missing sounds altogether. Or all of the above.  A person with this type of dyslexia may also have difficulty remembering words. They may also have a low level vocabulary.

One way of spotting this is how they do with multiple step instructions. Thats a sign.

This is a processing difficulty. It can affect reading, because we “hear” the words in our brain. Or it can affect words when they are heard out loud. Or both.

If your child had ear infections when very young that might be the cause.

Other signs are confusing words or saying them wrong. For example, confusing specific and pacific.  Or properly and probably. This will affect comprehension and reading speed. But all types of dyslexia will do that.

Now don’t get worried if your child always says pasgetti. Heck, I still say pasgetti sometimes. But if they regularly confuse words then pay attention. It could be auditory dyslexia.

If it is, then you’ll want to focus on the auditory skills. Those are

Auditory discrimination, auditory memory, and auditory closure. 

The next form of dyslexia is visual dyslexia. It’s also called surface dyslexia, orthographic dyslexia, or dyseidetic dyslexia.

A person with visual dyslexia has difficulty picturing words in their mind.  They are having difficulty with visual processing and working memory. This causes a difficulty with the abstractions of letters or words.

These dyslexics actually tend to be good with phonics. They are often very good at spelling words that are phonetically regular but will be bad at spelling words that are not phonetic.  They may have trouble with irregularly spelled sight words such as what, the, and does.

This is the type of dyslexia most people think of when they think of dyslexia. Visual dyslexics can confuse p’s and q’s, b’s and d’s. They can confuse words that can be reversed. Such as was and saw. When reading they will sometimes omit, substitute, or insert letters or words.  They may have trouble writing letters. And they may lose their place when reading.

This affects comprehension because they have difficulty associating words with mental pictures.

Research is showing that this form of dyslexia is probably genetic.

For visual dyslexia focus on the visual cognitive micro-skills. These are visual memory, visual discrimination, visual closure, and visual form constancy. 

Also, work on spatial skills such as proprioception.

And make sure to work visual tracking. Difficulties in tracking can cause these problems as well.

There's more info on visual tracking here.

The third type of dyslexia is called attentional dyslexia. It is sort of like visual dyslexia but is specifically the migration of letters. Letters seem to jump from one word to another. This usually happens with the first letters in words. For example, "kind wing" would be read as "wind king".

Can you imagine how confusing that might be?.

The first step for attentional dyslexia is to work on visual tracking skills. As a matter of fact, if there is any reading difficulty at all, work on visual tracking because it's the easiest to fix. And it's a very common problem.

The next type is called developmental neglect dyslexia. Neglect dyslexia doesn't get talked about much but is probably very common. And like the others, the name doesn't mean what it seems like. It doesn't mean the child was neglected.  It means "neglecting to honor the sequencing of letters".

Weird I know

Neglect dyslexia leads to errors like reversals of letters. It leads to reading words right to left.  Or it can lead to letters seeming out of sequence. Words may seem to actually move or jump around the page. So pay attention if a child mentions that.

This can be due to divisional attention. That means they are having difficulty focusing their attention where it needs to go. They don’t follow the sequence of letters. This can be caused by visual issues or processing issues. Same thing here, start with visual tracking and then move on to the other visual skills.

The next form of dyslexia is "rapid naming deficit dyslexia". Also called rapid auto naming. A difficulty in quickly naming things. People with this will often say the wrong word when reading. Reading will be slower and more difficult and this also affects comprehension. This type is very often comorbid with phonological dyslexia. They come together. To help this, work all of the cognitive micro-skills together.

And finally, that brings us to the last, and probably the most common type of dyslexia. Double deficit dyslexia. What is double deficit dyslexia?

That just means any combination of the types we’ve already mentioned. It's very common to have two or more types together.

It's also the reason a lot of dyslexia programs don’t perform as well as they could. Because they focus only on one aspect. That doesn't usually work. It’s much better to address them all together.  Not one at a time.

For visual dyslexia focus on the visual cognitive micro-skills. These are visual memory, visual discrimination, visual closure, and visual form constancy. 

Also, work on spatial skills such as proprioception.

And make sure to work visual tracking. Difficulties in tracking can cause these problems as well.

There's more info on all of those in the description

Picture association flash cards also help. This helps with developing visual memory around words. You’ll want to work the other visual skills also, but that is a start. There is also a link to those in the description.

The third type of dyslexia is called attentional dyslexia. It is sort of like visual dyslexia but is specifically the migration of letters. Letters seem to jump from one word to another. This usually happens with the first letters in words. For example, "kind wing" would be read as "wind king".

Can you imagine how confusing that might be?.

The first step for attentional dyslexia is to work on visual tracking skills. As a matter of fact if there is any reading difficulty at all, work on visual tracking because its the easiest to fix. And its a very common problem.

The next type is called developmental neglect dyslexia. Neglect dyslexia doesn't get talked about much but is probably very common. And like the others, the name doesn't mean what it seems like. It doesn't mean the child was neglected.  It means "neglecting to honor the sequencing of letters".

Weird I know

Neglect dyslexia leads to errors like reversals of letters. It leads to reading words right to left.  Or it can lead to letters seeming out of sequence. Words may seem to actually move or jump around the page. So pay attention if a child mentions that.

This can be due to divisional attention. That means they are having difficulty focusing their attention where it needs to go. They don’t follow the sequence of letters. This can be caused by visual issues or processing issues. Same thing here, start with visual tracking and then move on to the other visual skills.

The next form of dyslexia is "rapid naming deficit dyslexia". Also called rapid auto naming. A difficulty in quickly naming things. People with this will often say the wrong word when reading. Reading will be slower and more difficult and this also affects comprehension. This type is very often comorbid with phonological dyslexia. They come together. To help this, work all of the cognitive micro-skills together.

And finally that brings us to the last, and probably most common type of dyslexia. Double deficit dyslexia. What is double deficit dyslexia?

That just means any combination of the types we’ve already mentioned. It's very common to have two or more types together.

Its also the reason a lot of dyslexia programs don’t perform as well as they could. Because they focus only on one aspect. That doesn't usually work. It’s much better to address them all together.  Not one at a time.