Superficial dyslexia, also known as visual dyslexia, causes difficulty processing written information, especially with letters that look similar but are oriented differently, and words that form other words when rearranged. People with this disorder may have trouble retaining whole words in their memory and may accidentally skip letters or words while reading. It can be developmental or acquired, and retraining for new reading strategies may be necessary for those with acquired dyslexia.
Superficial dyslexia, which is also often referred to as visual dyslexia, is characterized by a difficulty processing written information. People with this type of dyslexia often have difficulty correctly identifying letters that look the same but are oriented differently from each other, or words that form other words when read backwards or when letters are rearranged. It’s also common for people with this disorder to have trouble with words that aren’t spelled phonetically. The term surface dyslexia is used to describe what this disorder looks like rather than the reason behind it.
People with superficial dyslexia can have a variety of different symptoms, which make reading difficult. One of the most common symptoms is a difficulty remembering or seeing the difference between letters that are made from the same basic shape, such as b, d, p, and q. While each of these four letters is distinctive, they all consist of a rounded side and a straight side twice its length. Whole words can also be easily confused by people with this type of dyslexia, especially when letters can be rearranged to form different words such as “era” and “saw.”
Often, people with superficial dyslexia don’t retain many whole words in their memories. Most words, even those frequently encountered in texts, need to be carefully scanned to be read correctly. Even when spelling out words, people with this type of dyslexia may have difficulty because not all of the letters in the word are processed in the brain. In many cases, people with this disorder may accidentally skip letters or even entire words while reading, in part due to an inability to keep their place in the text.
Superficial dyslexia can be developmental or acquired. People with developmental dyslexia have an irregularity in the brain that causes the disorder. This type of dyslexia can develop at any time during brain development and can be formed from a problem in the physical structure of the brain or a problem with synaptic connections. For those with acquired dyslexia, the cause of the disorder can be learned along with reading the whole word rather than based on phonetics. This type of visual dyslexia can often be overcome, but it may take a long period of retraining for new reading strategies to feel natural.
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