What is Dyslexia? I would like to put it as the difficulty in reading, writing, and spelling. The word “dyslexia” used to be taboo but greater awareness and advancements in therapies have reduced the stigma.
Occupational therapy coordinated along with speech therapy, remedial education, play therapy , music therapy, and sports can really help the child to build skills and enhance their abilities to the fullest.
Let’s break this down into simpler steps for us to understand.
It is the coordination of visual input along with the use of hands to hold an object. For e.g., knowing how to hold a pencil.
Ability to translate a visual image or a plan into motor action.
Ability to interpret visual information. For eg ability to find something from a cluttered drawer or make sense of differences (academic impact is understanding different letter formations)
This is important to stabilize the big joint to maintain the position for writing.
Needed to sustain and contract the correct muscles to have good handwriting.
Processing of stimulus and integrating it with the body is important.
Uninterrupted flow of thought in an organised manner is important to support writing.
To remember things sequentially. For e.g., for spelling
The ability of smooth eye movements for focused reading.
Ability to understand the sounds of the word.
To make sense of letters and words
Need to connect the heard words visually too.
Let us take the example of copying from the board. Which skills do we require for this? We require basic visual scanning skills to scan the content to be copied, visual perceptual skills to make meaning of the written content, good posture (shoulder stability), fine motor support to hold a pencil in position, working memory to remember the words, and spellings to copy fast.
Occupational therapists work on building up the basic skills (as mentioned above) and help in the rewiring of the brain via different treatment modalities one of which is sensory integration therapy.
An amalgamation of Occupational therapy , speech therapy, and remedial education in a school setup is a winning combination towards success.
Aditya Birla integrated school situated in Mumbai , is one such school for dyslexia, which provides the best support to the children to achieve their full potential in a fun-loving therapeutic environment.
