28 Oct How To Test For Dyslexia In Teenagers

Since there is no single test for dyslexia, there is also no specific test for a given age group, including teenagers.

Why is this?

An evaluation for dyslexia needs to consider the academic intellectual and developmental level of each individual child in order to determine whether the deficits in reading follow a pattern consistent with the disorder.

Read Next:

• What does a dyslexia evaluation look like?
• Is a self-test for dyslexia effective?
• The Dyslexia Reading Test, Explained

Can teenagers outgrow dyslexia?

There’s a common misconception that dyslexia means ‘reading words backward’ or solely having difficulty with decoding words. Although those are often problems associated with dyslexia, there are other deficits that may show up after a child has learned to decode properly.

This includes their ability to rapidly scan and process words as well as combine the meaning of individual words into full comprehension of what they are reading.

A reading deficit can arise in the later elementary school years, which can significantly affect teenagers as the reading demands increase. As their curriculum becomes more difficult, formerly concealed deficits become more pronounced and affect a student’s academic performance in substantive ways.

It’s important to understand that dyslexia is a lifelong learning difficulty.

As children learn compensatory skills and develop ways to work around the problem, the presentation of their disability becomes less noticeable, but it is still there, under all of the other skills.

What other issues can impact a teenager’s school performance?

Aside from the presentation of their dyslexia, teenagers also can have a range of other issues that impact their school performance such as attention and executive problems, emotional difficulties, and physical or hormonal changes that impact their daily and academic functioning.