2024-02-28 23:21:17
Thuringia’s Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow has spoken publicly about his dyslexia. What signs indicate this disorder and what can help those affected.
The left-wing politician Bodo Ramelow has spoken again about his reading and spelling disorder. As the Thuringian Prime Minister said on “Caren Miosga”, he was only diagnosed with dyslexia at the age of 18. Previously, he had always been classified as a “loser”, a “slacker” and a “class clown” who was overwhelmed by every dictate. But then a school psychologist finally made the liberating diagnosis. Ramelow had already openly admitted to being dyslexic in 2019. What is behind this learning disorder?
Dyslexia – technical term for reading and writing disorder (LRS)
Many children suffer from the specific learning disorder dyslexia, boys two to three times more often than girls. Between four to twelve percent of a year group are affected. This means that there are around 3.5 million dyslexics living in Germany alone. Symptoms include twisting, mixing up or omitting letters, slow reading and difficulty with upper and lower case letters.
Definition: dyslexia
According to the international classification scheme ICD-10 of the World Health Organization (WHO), a reading and writing disorder occurs when persistent, clear weaknesses in reading and spelling cannot be attributed to a lack of schooling, developmental age, below-average intelligence, mental illness or brain damage.
Neurologically, the causes of reading and writing disorders have not yet been fully clarified, because there is no reading center in the brain whose impairment alone could be the cause. As the “SWR” reports, a study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) suggests that a neuronal adaptation deficit could explain some symptoms. The researchers found that the brains of people with dyslexia process stimuli differently.
Dyslexia is a partial performance disorder. The WHO therefore categorizes it as a disability.
Possible symptoms of reading and writing disorders
The following symptoms are typical of dyslexia: The person affected
- cannot remember word pictures well.
- cannot distinguish heard stimuli well (for example, g and k sound the same).
- cannot distinguish stimuli seen well (for example, n and m look the same).
- has difficulty distinguishing which direction parts of a letter face (for example, whether the belly of b faces left or right).
- has poor reading comprehension, which is accompanied by slow, incorrect and halting reading.
- has difficulty understanding the serial sequences of words.
- has a highly fluctuating level of performance and attention.
- has a great dislike of reading and writing.
- keeps forgetting spelling rules and cannot apply them.
- has fine motor difficulties, which are reflected in restless writing.
- can read and write even worse under stress.
By the way
In the past, dyslexic children were often labeled as stupid. But a dyslexia diagnosis says nothing about a person’s general intelligence. Not all areas of learning are affected, only learning to write and read.
Therapies should be tailored to the person affected
For every dyslexic, the problem areas lie elsewhere. Certain tests help to find out these deficits. Based on the results, individual therapy should then be carried out that is individually tailored to the child.
It is important that the earlier the therapy begins, the better the results will be. This means that parents should take their child to see a doctor as early as possible if they notice that they have problems with reading and writing.
Therapy cannot relieve a dyslexic person of their disorder. A dyslexic remains a dyslexic for life. But it makes it easier to deal with letters, syllables, words and sentences.