If someone can’t read, is there a way to tell that a person has dyslexia (other than perhaps brain scans–I gather dyslexia has a neurological basis)?
I guess this is basically asking whether there are symptoms that don’t have to do with reading texts.
There are different kinds of dyslexia, of course. The question should be interpreted broadly.
-FrL-
It’s unbelievably subjective. I could read when I was four, and was diagnosed with dyslexia when I was 20. In more general terms, the words that trip you up if you’re dyslexic are not the words you learn at the dawn of your literacy. Seeing “comcis” instead of “comics” doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll see “cta” instead of “cat.” But you might.
One way to check–once a child has learned what the individual letters are called and what sounds each represents–is to show him a flash card of a word and ask him to transcribe it. I don’t know of a preliminary test that doesn’t involve reading texts, though. Brain scans are, AFAIK, something that’s dragged in pretty late in the process. I’ve never had one.