Professional Dyslexia About Dyslexia

Dyslexia: Organic Versus Emotional Reactions The neurologist has a set of descriptive terms he applies to varying degrees of sensory and motor malfunctions such as acalculia, dyscalculia, agnosia, dysnosia, agraphia, dysgraphia, alexia, aphasia, and so forth. The educator sees some 15 percent of his pupils as having learning problems resulting from partial central nervous system dysfunction and thinks of this as coming under the umbrella term of "minimal brain dysfunction" with a more definitive descriptive term of a disorder under the term "dyslexia" (visual dyslexia, auditory dyslexia, dysgraphia ) (Jordan, 1972). Dyslexia is viewed as a continuum from minor to major disabilities in learning. The child cannot learn in the usual way or at the usual speed due to the disordered central nervous system function. He becomes frustrated, anxious, angry, defensive, and develops a failure complex. The psychiatrist diagnoses his patient based on a cluster of symptoms and does not break down his diagnosis into its component neurological parts. He uses such terms as "confusion," "dissociation," "disorientation," "psychomotor excitation," or "psychomotor retardation," or "blocking,”