Children who have dyslexia are of average to above average intelligence, but their reading level is one and a half grades or more below where it should be. Dyslexic children have difficulty reading because their brain tends to reverse the order of letters in a word and confuse similar-looking letters with each other (such as p and q or b and d). There is a great deal of information available on dyslexia, and our understanding of it improves constantly. If your child has dyslexia, there are numerous strategies and exercises to help her improve her ability to read and write.
Students with hearing or sight problems often have a more difficult time learning to read and write than their peers. Because they have greater difficulty in making the world around them intelligible, they often have a harder time communicating in a written format as well. Children who are hearing impaired often have weaker language skills overall due to the fact that it is harder for them to differentiate between similar-sounding words and detect subtle inflections in speech. Fortunately, these children's cognitive abilities are still intact, and their difficulty in reading and writing can often be rectified through glasses, a hearing aid, or some other form of enabling device.
According to a 2006 study by the Society for Research in Child Development, behavioral problems and difficulty in reading are linked. So far, a solid explanation for this correlation has yet to be developed; however, there are several hypotheses. The strongest of these hypotheses is that reading problems and behavioral problems are caused by one another. This has proved especially true for boys.
Dysgraphia is a learning disability that results in a difficulty in expressing thoughts in writing. Dysgraphia is more than simply poor handwriting; it is a cognitive inability to transfer one's thoughts to paper. The qualifying characteristics of dysgraphia are defined on a state by state basis; however, studies indicate that the roots of dysgraphia stem from an inability to sequentially organize information.