• Read as much as you can about dyslexia. Good books to start off with are:-
  
  'Overcoming Dyslexia' by Beve Hornsby ( pub. Macdonald Optima ),
  'This Book Doesn't Make Sense' by Jean Augur ( pub. Bath Ed ),
  'Dyslexia - A Parent's Survival Guide by Christine Ostler, (pub. Ammonite Books ).
  'Day-to-Day Dyslexia in the Classroom' by Joy Pollock and Elisabeth Waller. (pub. Routledge)
  'How to Detect and Manage Dyslexia' by Philomena Ott (pub. Heinemann)

• Contact a local organisation. The following should be able to put you in touch with one.

• Britain - British Dyslexia Association (BDA) Tel: 0118 966 8271
• The Dyslexia Institute (Head Office) 01784 463 935
• Adult Dyslexia Organisation Helpline 0171 924 9559
• Dyspraxia Foundation 01462 454 986
• USA International Dyslexia Association 410 296 0232
  
  
• Try to get specialist teaching help.
• Speak to your child's teacher and try to get an assessment through your school.
• Arrange for your child to be assessed by an educational psychologist, or by a specially teacher of Specific Learning Difficulties. (dyslexia)
• Consider the 'Nessy' programme. You can teach your child at home with it, or you could encourage your child's school to use the programme for teaching all their dyslexic children, or you could call in a teacher to use it with a small group (no more than 3) of dyslexic children.

• Ask your child's schoolteacher or Headteacher if he/she can be assessed by the school educational psychologist. You may have to wait a long time for this to happen, or the school may feel that it is not appropriate. Also, some LEA educational psychologists do not have time to give a full WISC (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children) or BAS (British Abilities Scale) assessment and so certain specific areas of need are not always identified.
  
  
• Go to an independent educational psychologist. Make sure that the psychologist is used to identifying dyslexia. You should be able to get the names of educational psychologists from your local dyslexia association, or through the Association of Educational Psychological: Tel: 0191 384 9512 address: 26 The Avenue, Durham, DH1 4ED. These assessments can be quite expensive, often starting from £200, but they give an understanding of the way your child learns and uses his/her brain and this can not only identify specific areas of difficulty, but can also be useful for later career choices.

Try our questionnaire. This will give just a brief pointer but if you/your child scores positively, here are some other factors to consider. Signs (up to 7 years)

• Speech problems - mispronounciation of words, wrong order of words. However, some dyslexics learn to speak early and are very articulate.
• Rhyming may be difficult. (e.g. book and look).
• Poor sense of left & right.
• Difficulty in hearing and pronouncing sounds such as b, p, d, m, n, u, y, l, f, v, th.
• Attention problems - doesn't appear to hear when given explanations.
• Lack of progress in reading, writing and spelling, contrary to expectations built up by normal development in other areas.
• Poor fine motor control - e.g. holding a pencil, cutting with scissors.
• Mirror writing and difficulty in forming letters and writing them down in some reasonable state of order. Constant confusion with b, d, p, q, u, y, m, n, s, z.
• No sense of left and right.
• Undecided which hand to use when eating, drawing, playing, throwing balls, etc,
• Clumsiness.
• Difficulty in remembering instructions e.g. "Go upstairs and put on your socks and shoes and bring down your jumper from the wardrobe.
• Difficulty understanding the concept of time. May forget their birth date, their home address.
• Difficulty counting.
• Difficulty in playing sequencing and matching games.
• Problems fastening buttons, zips, tying shoe laces, and with the order in which they put their clothes on.
• Tantrums and signs of frustration at home, and at school for no apparent reason.
• Daydreaming and switching off in class and at home.
• Starts school happy, then becomes reluctant.
• If any literacy problems have already occurred in the family then special attention should be given to the signs given above.
  
  Signs in 7 - 13 years
  
  
• Unable to read, or reading age well below chronological age.
• Still having difficulty with sounds of letters.
• Poor, immature handwriting.
• Very poor spelling.
• Letter and sound confusion persist. E.g. writes 'v' for 'th' etc.
• No idea of punctuation when reading or writing a story.
• Essays and stories may often be brief and to the point.
• They know what they want to write but never know how to start and have great trouble writing their ideas down.
• If they can read they don't enjoy it and seem to hate books and reading aloud.
• When reading aloud they often misread words such as saw and was and omit and insert words frequently.
• Some children appear to read well but when they get to the end of the text they cannot remember anything they have read, and have to start again.
• Copying from board or book is difficult and inaccurate.
• They may still reverse numbers, e.g. writing 24 for 42 when doing complex arithmetic.
• Great problems in remembering multiplication tables, particularly their sequence. Also, the order of the days of the week, months of the year and the alphabet.
• Musical notation can be a problem, and a lack of feeling for timing can occur. A string, brass or wind instrument is preferable to the piano.
• Clumsiness and lack of co-ordination are still present.
• Some dyslexic children appear to have difficulty in understanding what is said to them and there is a time-lag before they answer. They are slow to process heard information.
• At this stage, frustration, withdrawal and behaviour problems seem to be increasing.
• Extreme reluctance to go to school may cause problems for all the family.
  
  Signs of dyslexia in adults
  
  
• They have difficulty reading and writing.
• They may have difficulty listening to a series of instructions.
• Problems putting across their ideas to others.
• They dread parties in case word games are played.
• They often pay bills in cash so as not to use a cheque book.
• They may confuse and mispronounce words. e.g. say 'cistificate' instead of 'certificate' or 'pacific' for 'specific'.
• They may be in a position of authority because they have good verbal skills and have learnt to disguise their poor spelling and/or reading but experience total panic when they have to give impromptu speeches or preside over meetings.
• If they have managed to get to university they may struggle with not taking and organisation of material. Writing essays will take three times as long as other students and organising a dissertation will become a mammoth task.
• They may also experience memory problems and find it exceptionally difficult to memorise lists, facts, and long complicated names.