Specific learning disorders make it difficult for affected children to cope with academic tasks; where they must learn to read, write and calculate in order to meet the first challenges posed by the education system.

Such child problems can generate deep emotional consequences if they are not detected in time and not intervened by a multidisciplinary team, and can last until adulthood (but transforming as the demands change).

In the present article we will address the way dyslexia is expressed in adults , one of the most frequent diagnoses of this category, and how it conditions work or other relevant areas of their lives (family, friendship, etc.).

Dyslexia in adults

Dyslexia is a disorder that usually begins during childhood (developmental subtype), although it sometimes debuts later in life (acquired subtype) as a result of severe head trauma or stroke. On a clinical level, it is expressed as a difficulty limited to reading and/or writing (omission, addition or substitution of letters), although sometimes there are also problems in mathematical calculation (dyscalculia).

Three specific types of dyslexia have been identified : phonological (difficulty in reading long, new, infrequent or pseudo-words), superficial (good reading of pseudo-words but with a tendency to make errors by omission/substitution of letters and by confusion of homophonic words) and profound (affecting the phonological and visual pathways, with errors in function words, semantic errors and problems in reading pseudo-words).

The following are the main symptoms that can occur in adults with dyslexia, many of which are usually an extension of those experienced during childhood (in developmental dyslexia). It is essential to bear in mind that in many cases the diagnosis was not received in childhood .

1. Labour difficulties

One of the common problems for adults with dyslexia is the difficulty in adapting to jobs that require a significant administrative burden . The preference for those positions oriented towards manual/automated activities is made explicit, as opposed to those that require greater attention to multiple demands or the writing of texts with which to overcome the bureaucratic demands of the company.

This is why they often fear promotions where responsibility may swing from one side to the other, since there is often an enormous distrust of one’s own abilities when these involve reading or composing texts. This situation can lead to the loss of opportunities for internal promotion, with which they would improve their quality of life and perceive their efforts to be rewarded in their professional career.

2. Self-esteem problems

Adults with dyslexia usually present a significant erosion of self-esteem associated with poor performance in various tasks , which is accentuated in cases where a diagnosis was not received during childhood. This is due to the fact that, when the problem has been detected in time, errors are usually attributed to the learning disorder itself and not to other causes that could compromise one’s image (limited intelligence, laziness, etc.).

Some adults with dyslexia had to endure ridicule from their peers because they had difficulty reading or writing correctly, and there are even cases where teachers contributed to the decline in children’s perceptions of themselves and their abilities (because of a lack of knowledge about disorders that can affect learning ability). These experiences of shame, primitive for the time of life in which they took place, can make the adult question his or her intelligence and grow among insecurities that negatively shape his or her self-esteem.

The situation sets the stage for mood and anxiety disorders, as has been consistently found in scientific studies on this subject. These comorbidities, as we saw, are more common among adults with dyslexia who were never diagnosed throughout childhood.

3. Reading difficulty

Adults with dyslexia have difficulty reading, as they often report that the letters seem to “move or even vibrate”, compromising the understanding of longer or shorter texts (the person would “skip” a line or even repeat the one he or she has just read). All this is accentuated when the typography or colour of the letters and the words are alternated . In fact, they usually have a clear preference for sans serif typeface (which uses the most elementary strokes, without frills or decorations).

The rhythm of reading is also altered, both “aloud” and mentally , so they require more time than the average person to study a document. Pronunciation can become clumsy, so that the syllables that make up each word are over-emphasized (altering fluency) and punctuation marks are ignored or exaggerated. It is an erratic and forced reading, which requires the investment of so many resources that it limits the ability to remember what has been read.

It is very common that the person must resort to rereading passages or paragraphs that he or she has previously reviewed; especially when they contain technicalities, neologisms, foreign words, polysyllables or unusual words. All this means that it is particularly difficult to extract the central idea from any text that is more or less extensive, as well as to separate what is relevant from what is not. Writing an abstract is often a challenge for people with severe dyslexia.

A final difficulty that is often detected in reading refers to problems in knowing how the sound of certain letters is articulated according to grammatical rules . For example, the letter “c” can be pronounced softly (parcel) or strongly (rock), depending on the vowel it accompanies (“e” or “i” in the first case and “a”, “o” or “u” in the second). There may be a difficulty in choosing the most appropriate sound automatically during the reading.

4. Absence of reading habit

Most adults with dyslexia report significant reading difficulties, as this is the core symptom of the disorder. Many indicate that the problem goes back to the first years of life , despite the fact that no diagnosis or evaluation was carried out. That is why they were never able to consolidate a reading habit, preferring activities that could arise spontaneously and without so much conscious effort. That is, recreational activities that did not represent a fight against adversity itself.

Very rarely is literature a hobby of the adult dyslexic, who prefers short texts to long or convoluted novels. This fact is not at all related to the ability to understand information , but is associated with the format through which information is recorded and accessed by the nervous system for further processing. The reception of the same data through auditory channels, or in the form of images, is remembered more precisely and for longer.

5. Problems in written communication

People with dyslexia have trouble writing, usually slowly and using calligraphy that lacks aesthetic sense. There is often confusion in the strokes of letters that are very similar in shape or in a speculative relationship (such as “d” and “b” or “q” and “p”), which can also occur in reading (especially when they are shown in isolation and not as part of words). This slowness in writing makes writing texts perceived as a laborious or impossible task.

Adults with dyslexia may experience difficulties when copying dictation, i.e. listening and writing simultaneously . This phenomenon is due to the fact that language processing requires such a high volume of cognitive resources that divided attention cannot be managed when several stimuli of a verbal nature (writing, listening and/or reading at the same time and in the correct way) compete with each other. This phenomenon is evident in childhood, in dictation tasks that take place in the academic context.

Finally, spelling is also often affected (especially deaf letters or letters that sound similar when pronounced). Frequently you can detect in your written products the omission of words within sentences, or even letters within words, making them difficult to read and understand. It is common that, in the case that they have the need to write in the work environment, these errors cause complaints from colleagues.

6. Difficulty in left/right discrimination

Many people with dyslexia, as adults, have difficulty identifying quickly (without much thought) which side of their body is the left and which is the right, or which side has an object in relation to a central point.

The symptom is not present in all cases or with the same severity , nor is it exclusive to people with dyslexia. Only in a very exceptional way can the sense of “up” and “down” be compromised, which happens in cases where spatial vision is profoundly altered (orientation, understanding of maps, etc.).

Studies have also found that people with dyslexia tend to process verbal stimuli in the left half of their perceptual field more slowly than readers without the disorder (approximately 15 milliseconds). All this suggests a right-hemisphere parietal lobe hypofunction, since we must remember that the detection of stimuli in any hemicampus is processed contralaterally.

7. Problems in oral communication

Most adults with dyslexia communicate verbally without difficulty, but there are a percentage of them who have problems in this area as well. The most common problems are the delay in answering the questions asked (as if they thought they were going to say too long) and the reluctance to speak in public.

The latter impairment is often the result of emotional conflict caused by the teasing of schoolmates when reading aloud.

The recitation of poetry is especially difficult for adults with dyslexia , especially when it requires improvisation , as they have trouble finding assonant or consonant rhymes. This is accentuated by the fact that the last syllables of words are the most difficult to pronounce correctly, but also the most relevant to give a poem its metric meaning.

The beauty of a verbal stimulus (which is the object of poetry) is relegated to a second order of importance in contrast to the formal aspects.

8. Sequencing problems

Adults with dyslexia have problems organizing information sequentially, that is, threading together fragments of verbal discourse in a serial fashion. Instead, they tend to make non-linear assessments that consider the totality of the message, which contributes to the presentation of non-conventional mental processing strategies , which have often been described in the literature as a potential strength in dyslexia (creativity, divergent thinking or out-of-box reasoning).

However, such difficulty in sequencing can have some negative consequences on daily life, namely: forgetting appointments (which is usually part of what has come to be called prospective memory, but is actually an executive function), problems in understanding several instructions at once (divided attention) and disorganization (since there is difficulty in prioritizing and prioritizing tasks).

9. Attention problems

Attention problems are common in adults with dyslexia, and are often referred to as an inability to maintain focus for long periods or substantial distraction .

It is also noted that irrelevant stimuli trap too much attention, so it is difficult to devote sustained effort to a message if it competes with many verbal stimuli at once (such as in a cafeteria where many voices are heard around).

10. Prevalence of visual skills

People with dyslexia may discover over time that they process verbal information better when they manage to structure it through diagrams or other resources that give it visual nuances, and that also evoke images more accurately than words. This makes them remember others more easily by their face than by their name , and makes it difficult for them to learn new concepts.

Bibliographic references:

  • Protopapas, A. and Parrila, L. (2018). Is Dyslexia a Brain Disorder? Brain Science, 8(4): 61.
  • Hebert, M., Kearns, D.M., Baker, J., Bazis, P. and Cooper, S. (2018). Why Children With Dyslexia Struggle With Writing and How to Help Them. Language, Speech and Hearing Services in Schools, 49(4), 843-863.