Dyslexia is a specific learning disorder (ASD). This term refers only to disorders of scholastic skills, and in particular to: DYSLEXIA, dysorthography, dysgraphia and dyscalculia. The main feature of this category is its specificity, ie the disorder affects a specific domain skills (reading, writing, mathematics), leaving intact general intellectual functioning. This means that to have a diagnosis of dyslexia, the child must NOT be present: lack of intelligence, environmental problems or psychological, sensory or neurological deficits. This disorder is caused by neurobiological alteration that characterizes the DSA (dysfunction in the operation of certain groups of cells responsible for the recognition of letters-words and their meanings). Dyslexia is a difficulty that affects the ability to read and write correctly and fluently. Reading and writing are considered acts so simple and automatic that it is difficult to understand the fatigue of a dyslexic child.
Unfortunately, in Italy dyslexia is poorly understood, although it concerns calculations that 3-4% of the school population (end of primary school and Ssecondaria of First Instance). Dyslexia is not caused by a lack of intelligence or by environmental problems or psychological or neurological or sensory deficits.
The dyslexic child can read and write, but fails to do so only by engaging the most of his ability and his energy, because it can not do so automatically and therefore gets tired quickly, make mistakes, fall behind, do not learn. The dislessa is in almost constant association with other disorders (comorbidity); This fact determines the marked heterogeneity of the profiles and the expressiveness with which the DSA occur, and that has important effects on diagnostic tests. The difficulty in reading may be more or less severe and is often accompanied by problems in writing: dysorthography (ie, a type of spelling difficulties in 60% of cases) and dysgraphia (difficulty in movement and motor up the writing, that is a bad yield formal, in 43% of cases), in the calculation (44% of cases), and sometimes also in other mental activities. However, these children are intelligent and usually lively and creative.