Did You Know That There Are Different Types Of Dyslexia?

Dyslexia is a condition that affects the ability to read and understand written language. It involves  difficulties with letters as well as analyzing and classifying sounds. But there are different types of dyslexia.

It is common to omit, replace, distort, reverse, or add words. There is usually some slowness or hesitation, as well as problems with reading comprehension.

But not everyone with dyslexia suffers from the same symptoms, because as I said, there are different types of dyslexia.

To understand these types, it is necessary to know that reading is a two-part process. This means that the brain has two ways of reading words – one visual and one phonological.

The visual route consists of reading the words as a whole and using the superficial memory to recognize them. This can only be done with familiar words because otherwise they do not exist in our memory.

The phonological route involves reading by converting graphemes / phonemes and processing the words individually. This is very useful for reading unknown words.

If  any of these routes are damaged, it will result in a specific type of dyslexia. In this article, we will talk about the different types that occur when reading functions are damaged.

We will especially look at  superficial dyslexia, phonological dyslexia and deep dyslexia.

Types of dyslexia

Superficial dyslexia

People who suffer from superficial dyslexia have selective problems with their ability to read words that have irregular pronunciation. This is a type of dyslexia that does not exist in all languages, because not all languages ​​have an irregular pronunciation.

For example, Spanish does not have it while English does. An example of irregular pronunciation is “steak” and “speak”.

Superficial dyslexia indicates that there is damage to the visual route or direct access to the words. People with this dyslexia can read regular words without problems through a direct translation from grapheme to phoneme.

But with irregular words, this strategy does not work. They also have no problem  reading non-existent words or pseudo-words, which is further evidence of harm in the direct way.

Another key aspect of this dyslexia is that the semantic capacity is not damaged. Even if the person cannot read the word correctly, he still understands it if someone reads it aloud.

The damage is thus limited to the person’s reading ability.

Phonological dyslexia

People suffering from phonological dyslexia have a selective condition that affects the ability to read unknown words or pseudo-words,  but the ability to read familiar words is unchanged.

For example, they may have difficulty reading the non-word “barefoot” but have no problem with the word “famous”.

This shows that the damaged route is the phonological one. People suffering from phonological dyslexia can therefore not translate words from grapheme to phoneme, and because of this they have difficulty reading unfamiliar words.

However, since the direct route is unchanged, they do not have any problems with familiar words. They may also have difficulty reading so-called function words (that it, it and one ),  probably because these words are very abstract.

But the results of the investigations made are often contradictory, and we must be careful with phonological dyslexia because there can be more damage than just the phonological route.

Deep dyslexia

At first glance, it may seem that superficial dyslexia and phonological dyslexia are the only types that are linked to damage to the various routes. However, there is another type, and it is quite surprising.

It is called  deep dyslexia,  and despite its similarities to phonological dyslexia, it has a distinctive feature – semantic paralexia.

Semantic paralexia occurs when the person instead of reading the written word produces another word that is linked to the original word.

For example, instead of the written word “daughter”, the person may say “sister”. It is a very interesting phenomenon that indicates an injury that affects how the person establishes the semantics of different words.

Another key aspect that can show us the extent of the semantic damage is the extent to which the person can imagine the word.

When the person has difficulty creating a mental image of the concept in question, he will have more difficulty reading the words. If, on the other hand, the concept is easy to imagine, reading can be easier.

This shows that the person has difficulties when he has to search for the word within the semantic network. Because of this, it becomes easier to find, and thus read, the more mental data there is.

More research is needed on these different types of dyslexia

Dyslexia is a complex condition that gives us lots of information about our ability to relate to language and how this function works.

Understanding the different types of categories helps us understand the structure and functionality of the language.

For this reason, more research is needed if we want to gain a deeper understanding of the basics of communication and be able to discover the source of problems with it.