Stealth
dyslexia is a term used to refer to dyslexia that stealthily afflicts children
without letting others in on the problem the child is facing. Children with
stealth dyslexia are highly intelligent, which is what enables them to navigate
their reading difficulties with the help of their keen memory and intuition.
These children decode words they can’t process and make sense of through the
redundancy and contextual cues that lengthy written passages generally provide.
Although their use of intelligence and reasoning to be able to support academic
pursuits may bring good grades in lower grades, the learning disability tends
to pose a problem as the child moves to higher grades.
General
schools as well as schools for children with learning disabilities play an
important role in identifying the signs of stealth dyslexia and evaluating the
child for this learning disability.
Stealth
dyslexia is often misidentified as a writing disability or an attention
disorder when its true basis lies in the inability to process and make sense of
written words.
There are
certain signs that are commonly observed in children with stealth dyslexia,
listed below.
Signs of stealth dyslexia
- · Marked difference in oral and written expression
The written
expression of the child doesn’t seem to do justice to their oral expression
abilities as well as their level of intelligence and creativity. It is likely
to be too simple for the child’s intellectual capabilities.
- · Repetitive spelling errors
A child with this learning disability may make repetitive spelling errors that are out of sync with their attention skills, ability to recall something they have learned and their power to learn and grasp new knowledge.
- · Difficulty comprehending short text passages
Children with
stealth dyslexia are able to get by owing to their ability to guess at words
they can’t sound out. This becomes more difficult to do when presented with
concise text passages, such as test questions or oral math problems. The child
may end up giving ‘silly answers’ to questions on a test owing to their
inability to comprehend passages of short length. This happens because short
passages do not offer the amount of contextual cues that a long passage does.
If a child
seems to exhibit any of the above-mentioned signs, it is important to get them
evaluated. Dyslexia can be accommodated and remedied in learning disabilities schools. Such schools would use the same therapeutic-academic interventions
that are employed for children with dyslexia. Learning disabilities schools
help build phonemic awareness, allow the use of assistive devices and allow
extra time on tests and assignments for children with stealth dyslexia.
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