According to a study at Yale, one out of five people suffer from dyslexia. By definition, dyslexia is a disorder that makes it difficult for an individual to learn, read and interpret words or symbols. Most believe that dyslexia is correlated with general intelligence. In the scientific, realm however, this is only a myth.
The Washington Post has reported that over the past decade there have been numerous endeavors to help dyslexics. Among these are two companies that go by the name of Open Dyslexic and Dyslexie, both of which were launched during the past decade. They have designed fonts, including letters that have tails of varying lengths and heavy bottoms, which can potentially help dyslexics learn.
Both of these fonts were created aiming to deal with some symptoms found in dyslexia. Typically, these fonts have greater spacing in between than usually found between words and the letters are larger in size.
According to the Mayo Clinic, these fonts help gaining resolve regarding the problems people with dyslexia experience in processing and understanding auditory stimuli as well as rapid instructions. Difficulty in observing visual and auditory similarities and differences are also catered to.
The Chief Executive of Bearly Articulating, Jeannette Washington, trains dyslexic teachers. She says that specially designed fonts "are helpful because dyslexic learners have difficulties with orientation." What this implies is that dyslexics have trouble appraising fonts that are slanted and/or have some physical orientation.
What can parents do about this? One way is to make sure that the child is screened at a young age. Identifying the problem at an early age makes it way easier to deal with it. The most apparent symptoms of dyslexia are problems in reading. So, if a child experiences severe difficulty in reading, chances are he's a dyslexic.
Another way to go about this is for parents to work hand-in-hand with school personnel and ensure the child's instruction is premised on some tested and proven models that can actually assist the child in decrypting words and sounding them out loud. Websites like understood.org can be a huge help for providing valuable information regarding how a parent ought to work alongside the school to help his or her child.
