Dyslexia is offer characterized by the child or adult’s struggle with reading and/or writing. There are a few explanations of what causes dyslexia. According to MedicineNet, there are three main types of dyslexia, categorized by what caused them: trauma dyslexia, primary dyslexia, and developmental dyslexia. In addition, dyslexia is also categorized by the issues the individual is having. These include visual and auditory dyslexia.
Trauma dyslexia, the first type, usually happens after the individual has gone through brain trauma or brain injury. This may be for a variety of reasons, such as a car accident or a fall from a tall ladder. Trauma dyslexia is usually seen in adult patients and most children do not suffer from it. The trauma is usually at the area of the brain that controls an individual’s ability to read and to write.
The next type of dyslexia (again, according to MedicineNet) is called Primary Dyslexia. Instead of a brain injury or trauma, Primary Dyslexia is caused by a dysfunction of the cerebral cortex, or left side of the brain. This type of dyslexia is genetic and is hereditary and is sometimes correlated with left-handedness (however, not all left-handed children are dyslexic and vice versa). Boys are usually more likely to have Primary Dyslexia than girls are. This type of dyslexia does not improve or get worse with age. Patients usually read at or below a fourth-grade level and continue to struggle with writing, reading, and spelling into their adulthood.
The last type of dyslexia is called Developmental (or Secondary) Dyslexia and is assumed to be caused by hormonal development during the early stages of development in the uterus. Developmental dyslexics usually improve and have less symptoms as they get older. This type of dyslexia is also more common in boys.
Furthermore, as mentioned above, individuals with a certain type of dyslexia may also be categorized by what type of skill they are struggling with. Visual dyslexia is constituted as a struggle with the ability to write numbers, letters, and words in their correct order and style. Many dyslexics often may read words backwards or write (or say) words out of order in a sentence. Auditory dyslexia is the struggle with the sounds of individual letters or words. Auditory dyslexics cannot pronounce the sounds of letters and words correctly because they do not hear or see them in the right way.
Auditory dyslexia also may be caused by hearing and ear problems that start from an early age. If a child is unable to hear the correct pronunciation of words and letters, than they will in fact have trouble learning them and may develop a case of auditory dyslexia.
However, it’s important to note that this isn’t always the case. Auditory dyslexics don’t always have hearing problems and those with hearing problems may not have dyslexia.
What causes dyslexia definitely depends on the individual’s own circumstances. A dyslexia patient may suffer from a combination of the above causes of dyslexia and therefore may have a more severe (or long-standing) case than others.
By Gavin Cruise, http://dyslexiawayofthinking.co.uk/2011/12/dyslexia/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=facebook
Recently, 60 Minutes did a moving segment called, "Apps for Autism." In it, they demonstrated the impact that the iPad has had for many people with autism who are unable speak. The segment demonstrated clearly how new tools and information can lead to breakthroughs that parents and professionals might previously never have expected. I was particularly impacted by the section in which they show a young man named Nuno interacting with the iPad. At 10, Nuno doesn't speak, and was previously thought to have "the IQ and attention span of a toddler." Yet, once the iPad is placed in front of him, he demonstrates a vocabulary and understanding that belies this assumption. And, we learn in an interview with his teacher that while exploring music on the iPad, they discovered a surprising fact: Nuno is a connoisseur of opera.
Nuno's case is a demonstration of what many parents and people on the spectrum have said for many years — that current diagnostic tests and techniques underestimate the capabilities of those on the autism spectrum. Some experts are now beginning to agree. In many cases, it's not a question of whether autistic people have intelligence, it's a question how they can communicate their intelligence.
When I write about my experiences living on the spectrum, I spend a lot of time thinking about the trajectory my life has taken, and tracing the source of the accomplishments in my life. Why is it, I wonder sometimes, that I'm better able to "fake normality" than others? (Of course whether all would want to do so is another story.) What abilities was I able to develop, that others have not? And why have I have developed them?
When I look at my social successes, for example, much of my success is predicated on the awareness of body language. But, body language is something those of us on the spectrum are supposed to have problems understanding — so how do I explain that? How did I build those skills?
I trace that back to a summer afternoon when I was about 11 years old. That afternoon, my mother and I had visited a local used bookstore — a weekly ritual. In the doorway, my mother turned to me. "You may choose ONE book to buy," she said, and sent me off to browse.
She did the same. When she was done, she called to me from the checkout. I snatched the book I had been perusing from the shelf, and trotted to the counter. "Did you find the book you want?" She asked. In answer, I slapped the big tome down on the counter.
Perplexed, she picked it up and looked at it. "Are you sure that this is the book you want?" She asked, as she took in the big block letters across the front. What did her grade schooler want with someone's cast off Psychology textbook?
"Yes," I responded immediately. Undoubtedly sensing a bit of Aspergian fixation in my voice and manner, she shrugged and added it to the purchases she had laid on the counter. She wasn't one to withhold knowledge and learning. If it was what I wanted, why not?
I was antsy and anxious all the way home...I wanted to continue my reading. When my mother opened the door, I raced through it and up the stairs to my room. Flopping down on my stomach in a sunny spot on the carpet, I opened the book and began flipping through it.
I skipped the spots about babies and child development...I liked babies. It was when they got older, when they talked, that I began to have problems. As I flipped through a subsequent chapter a phrase stopped me cold — "body language." Ah, now this was interesting. You mean you could tell what a person was thinking or feeling, just by looking at looking at their body and facial expressions?! For a kid that loved puzzles and secret codes, I thought this was coolest thing I had ever heard.
As I read, I found myself reliving and reassessing incidents from the past...and suddenly they made sense. I thought of an experience I'd had a few years earlier, in Second Grade. The class was lined up to go out for recess, when our teacher was unexpectedly called out to the hall, leaving us temporarily unsupervised. A couple of my classmates decided to take the opportunity to start roughhousing.
Standing quietly in line, I was suddenly slammed from behind. Now, there was something warm and weird against my cheek. Rough. In front of my eyes was a strange tableau that reminded me of the nature close-ups that were a staple of the Science magazines I liked. Green, with odd little swirly structures that looked a little like spores. I turned my head a little. I felt the scratchiness against my cheek, and watched the tableau shift. I began to realize that something was different about my body, too. I didn't seem to be upright.
I was slammed backward again, as a roar sounded in front of me. "Would you get the hell off me! I'm not your damn father!" the boy in front of me bellowed. I stumbled and caught my balance, then looked around me. A wide space had opened around me, and I was off to the side, like a pariah. The room was utterly silent, and all the kids were staring.
I was humiliated...I knew I'd somehow done something wrong — but what? I was mystified by the boy's behavior. It violated every rule that I'd been taught. If you didn't like something a person was doing, I'd been taught, you asked them nicely to stop. If they didn't, then you would repeat the request more forcefully. If that didn't work, you'd escalate to an adult. Yelling and swearing — that was an absolute last resort. There was something I was missing here.
Now, reading this book, I had my answer. It described a concept called "personal space"...a buffer zone around each person that others were not meant to cross. Doing so would, at minimum, make the person uncomfortable...or provoke hostility. So that was it! I'd violated the boy's personal space and had been too slow in correcting the problem. It didn't take the sting out of the memory, but it gave me comfort to at least understand what had caused the altercation.
What I learned from this book, was the first step in learning to simulate neurotypical body language. If I had not picked up that book, I believe I'd be in a very different place today. Getting a sense of what I didn't know went a long way in correcting the misunderstandings that I encountered so often (like that with my second grade classmate). You have to understand a gap, before you can fill it. All too often, in people like me, this awareness comes late in life.
So much of the dialog around autism and Asperger's is structured around deficits — what I call the "can'ts." Within that framework, it can be too easy to underestimate the capabilities of those on the spectrum. But, there are ways to bridge the gaps. Ways to adapt. We just have to find those ways.
As a society, we can't afford to write off the intelligence and abilities of autistic people. As I learned from my stepmother's friends in the wider disability community, one of the best ways to do this is to ask questions that presume competence. "How" questions — like "How can they communicate?" Or, "How can we teach them social skills?" These are the questions that lead to actionable answers.
When you interact with autistic people, what questions are you asking? "Can" questions or "how" questions?
There is a huge variation among children in the rate of brain development and associated changes in mental function.
Photograph: Randy Faris/Alamy
The age of criminal responsibility in England, Wales and Northern Ireland could be "unreasonably low" given the emerging understanding of how slowly the brains of children mature, according to a report by the Royal Society. Widespread differences between individuals also mean that the cut-off age at which children are deemed fit to stand trial, at 10 years old, might not be justifiable in all cases.
The comments are part of an assessment carried out by a panel of scientists, lawyers and ethicists of how developments in neuroscience and brain imaging should inform the future practice of law. Neuroscience and the Law, published on Tuesday, examines how scientific understanding of the brain has advanced in recent decades and the light this has shed on behaviour. The report also assesses the reliability of lie detector tests.
"A number of psychologists have already shown that adolescents are not wholly responsible individuals and are inclined to take risks and behave in irresponsible ways," said Nicholas Mackintosh, an emeritus professor in the department of experimental psychology at the University of Cambridge and chair of the Royal Society panel. "What neuroscience has shown in the last 10 years is that this is at least associated with the fact that the brain continues to develop throughout adolescence."
In particular, the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for decision-making, impulse control and cognitive control, is among the slowest parts of the brain to mature and is not fully developed until around the age of 20. "Neuroscience adds to the evidence that a 10 or 12 or 15-year-old does not have a fully adult brain in many important respects," said Mackintosh.
Research has also shown that there is huge variation between individuals and that the development of the slowest-developing parts of the brain is associated with comparable changes in mental functions such as IQ, suggestibility, impulsivity, memory and decision-making.
In contrast, the amygdala, an area of the brain responsible for reward and emotional processing, develops during early adolescence.
"It is clear that at the age of 10 the brain is developmentally immature, and continues to undergo important changes linked to regulating one's own behaviour," said the report. "There is concern among some professionals in this field that the age of criminal responsibility in the UK is unreasonably low, and the evidence of individual differences suggests that an arbitrary cut-off age may not be justifiable."
Roger Brownsword, a former professor of law at King's College London, said that the question of criminal responsibility showed how neuroscience should form part of general policy debates around criminal justice. "It wouldn't be so much neuroscience driving that but it might be that neuroscience became very relevant in the background as we review that particular question," he said.
Another emerging uses of brain imaging is in lie detection. Several companies in the US offer services that claim to reveal whether a defendant is telling the truth. "We take a similarly sceptical view of that," said Mackintosh. "Most brain imaging data might tell you the difference between someone who is telling the truth and someone who is lying, though even that is uncertain. But it is quite certainly the case that some guilty offenders who protest their innocence actually believe they are innocent. They are not lying as far as they're concerned. It is also possible that, as soon as you're told what brain imaging is picking up in your brain, it's quite easy to fool it."
He added that the large majority of behavioural scientists and neuroscientists agree that brain imaging is not yet – and perhaps never will be – a reliable lie detector.
This has implications for criminal trials, said Brownsword, where the perceptions of jurors might be dangerously incorrect unless they have been tutored in exactly what this science can and cannot do.
"Lawyers and neuroscientists have to be educated in the nature of behavioural and neuroscientific evidence that all it can do is, by and large, indicate changes in probability," added Mackintosh. "The law is not only concerned with passing sentence in court, it's also concerned with prediction and risk assessment. Is this person likely to re-offend if now released from prison? It's impossible to make this prediction with any degree of certainty or accuracy. Risk assessment is a risky business and is notoriously inaccurate."
One of the main recommendations of the Royal Society report is that there should be an international meeting of neuroscientists and lawyers every three years to discuss the latest advances in "areas at the intersection of neuroscience and the law to identify practical applications that need to be addressed".
