**4.2 Reading**


*Screening, Assessment and Identification Tools for Dyslexia DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.113899*


#### **4.3 Written language**


#### **4.4 Other common symptoms that occur with dyslexia**


#### **4.5 Dyslexia symptoms in preschoolers**


#### **5. Screening, diagnosis and early intervention**

Reading comprehension is a necessary skill in today's environment for both academic success and full participation in society. Thus, problems with reading can have detrimental effects on both the person and the society as a whole. For students who exhibit the warning symptoms of dyslexia, early detection and intervention are crucial for improved outcomes in the long run. It is now possible to test, identify, and correct reading challenges early on thanks to research that has pinpointed the exact skill deficiencies that predict subsequent reading difficulties. Programs at the kindergarten and first-grade levels, which require roughly 30–45 min each day, can solve problems for the majority of kids.

Prior to the second grade, it is more crucial to concentrate an examination on the reading development precursors. The Simple view of reading represents the definition of reading as the result of decoding and comprehension as the equation: reading = decoding (listening) comprehension [20]. This equation states that reading success requires both decoding and (listening) comprehension. Therefore, decoding issues, more widespread language issues, such inadequate vocabulary, or both may contribute to children's reading difficulties. Developmental dyslexia is the term used to describe sudden decoding difficulties in children.

Young children's linguistic abilities, phonological awareness, memory, and quick naming tests are more indicative of dyslexia risk than tests of word reading, decoding, and spelling. As a result, phonological awareness, memory, and rapid naming measures are frequently included in screening tests for kindergarten and the first few months of first grade in order to help identify students who need specialized instruction in order to develop these crucial abilities so they can achieve grade-level standards [1, 2, 20, 21].

#### **6. Challenges in evaluation and eligibility process**

Assessment of dyslexia faces a number of difficulties, including a lack of understanding of various terminologies, reliance on phonological awareness as the only linguistic factor, SES, inappropriate use of assessment models, under diagnosis of exceptional students, co-occurring disorders, and ignorance of reliable psychometric tools. Many people have the misconception that people who write letters backwards all have dyslexia, or that children with dyslexia write letters backwards. In order to detect pupils who have reading issues, including dyslexia, schools and teachers are crucial. Making ensuring that teachers are able to recognize reading issues early and use the information obtained via the assessment process to determine eligibility is a difficulty. Early detection of dyslexia is crucial to minimizing these social and emotional challenges and ensuring that the student not only learns to read but also comprehends why reading is difficult.

*Screening, Assessment and Identification Tools for Dyslexia DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.113899*

As of right now, eligibility assessments can be determined in a variety of ways or by combining different approaches, such as: a difference in the person's ability (typically based on an IQ score) and performance (Usually determined by the results of a norm-referenced or individual achievement tests); A pattern of an individual's strengths and weaknesses, as well as a pattern of symptoms, can be observed among their academic accomplishment and cognitive scores [8, 22–24].

### **7. Framework for eligibility as a student with a reading disability**

**Step 1**: Gather information on reading proficiency of children from teachers, parents and intervention.

**Step 2:** Individually administer the norm-referenced achievement and cognitive processing tests, state-wide assessments, and curriculum-based measures can all be used to evaluate reading proficiency to find the evidence that the student is not performing up to grade or age norms.

**Step 3:** Verify that the exclusionary criteria (limited English proficiency, lack of instruction, emotional disturbance, cultural factors, visual, hearing, or motor disability, intellectual disability, emotional disturbance, or environmental disadvantage) are not the major causes of the student's poor reading performance.

**Step 3:** Examine the cognitive functioning to see if there are any reading-related impairments in any particular area. Phonological processing, orthographic awareness, quick naming, processing speed, and working memory are specific cognitive processes associated with reading. Rule out executive functioning disorders as a possible source of attention problems.es associated with reading. Rule out executive functioning disorders as a possible source of attention problems.

**Step 4:** Indicate the likelihood that the child needs special education and that their learning challenges necessitate particularly tailored instruction due to the impact of their reading disability (in accordance with IDEA, [25]).

**Step 5:** Indicate the likelihood that the child needs special education and that their learning challenges necessitate particularly tailored instruction due to the impact of their reading disability (in accordance with DSM-5).

The frame work has been asdapted from Lindstrom [22].

#### **8. Battery of assessments targeting language and reading**

It is customary to rule out any potential hearing acuity issues before testing. Language, Phonological awareness, rapid naming/word fluency, Reading fluency, Reading comprehension, Spelling, and Writing are the fundamental areas to be examined for a dyslexia diagnosis.

#### **8.1 Language**

The foundation for reading and writing is oral language; hence people with oral language issues typically also develop literacy disorders. Because dyslexia inhibits reading over time, which may also unintentionally artificially lower IQ results, language tests that provide information about an individual's receptive and expressive language abilities, language processing, morphological skills, and pragmatic language skills are required. A formal evaluation of language using a standardized test must be

combined with an informal evaluation of a person's pragmatic language abilities, such as a language sample and inquiries to parents and teachers.

#### **8.2 Phonographical awareness**

Poor phonological awareness, which emerges in an inability to recognize and combine separate phonemes in words, is the most defining characteristic of dyslexia. People who struggle with phonemic awareness may have trouble making rhymes and recognizing words that rhyme, counting phonemes in a word (a process known as segmenting), adding, removing, or moving sounds around in a word (a process known as elision), and hearing sounds in isolation and blending them together to form words (blending). It had been discovered that a reading disability was strongly predicted by a lack of phonemic awareness.

#### **8.3 Reading fluency**

The score of reading accuracy plus the rate (speed) at which one can read is known as reading fluency. Children's reading comprehension can be tested by having them read longer or shorter passages. It represents the typical number of words successfully read each minute. Poor reading fluency may be a sign of issues with vocabulary, comprehension, decoding, or phonemic awareness. Dyslexic children read accurately at a slower rate.

#### **8.4 Reading comprehension**

The ability to comprehend printed material is known as reading comprehension. Children with dyslexia may learn just enough information from reading brief paragraphs to perform well on reading comprehension tests.

#### **8.5 Spelling**

Spelling tests can offer insightful diagnostic data on phonemic awareness and language in general. Spelling proficiency sheds light on additional knowledge needed for written communication. Poor spelling may be an indication of a hearing deficiency or auditory processing problem. It may also reflect inadequacies in one or more of the following language components: phonemic awareness, orthographic knowledge, semantic knowledge, and morphological knowledge.

#### **8.6 Writing**

The most intricate type of language is writing. A child's language problems are frequently most obvious in his or her writing. There could be deficiencies like misspellings, syntactic, semantic, and morphologic problems, deletions of words or word ends, and general inconsistencies.

#### **8.7 Other-multicultural considerations**

When evaluating literacy, cultural and linguistic context must be taken into account. The conventions of narrative vary among cultures. When English is not the primary language spoken at home, issues with language and, consequently, reading comprehension may arise. Additionally, some kids can come from households where neither parent has a college degree, and they might not be exposed to books that help kids learn to read and write.

#### **8.8 Other-school issues**

School-related problems can take the form of acting out or behaving extremely quietly in the classroom to avoid being chosen to read aloud. They can also choose books to read that have already been read to them. Being awful is preferable to feeling foolish. Another red signal is when a parent is doing homework or when a youngster takes a long time to complete their assignments. Finally, and most significantly, the youngster is still not learning to read despite the additional support at school.

#### **9. Diagnosis and assessment tools of dyslexia**

Dyslexia diagnosis can frequently seem like a daunting, complex task. For parents, educators, doctors, and other professionals working with troubled students, it is truly a multi-step challenge. Finding out "who on earth actually diagnoses dyslexia?" is the first issue faced by parents of struggling pupils. Typically, parents visit the school for the first time when they see their child is having difficulties. If they have done any research or have heard of dyslexia, they question the school staff if that could be the reason for their child's difficulties. Although they can identify red flags, school personnel are unable to make a diagnosis of dyslexia; hence a competent outside specialist must do so. Clinical psychologists, neuropsychologists, speech-language pathologists, educational diagnosticians, academic learning centres, or medical experts with relevant training in diagnostic evaluations for learning disorders are examples of qualified professionals.

The diagnosis should be made as with any diagnosis, using information from the case history, casual observation and conversation, and the standardized measures. It's critical to assess for evidence of poor decoding, low reading fluency, poor reading comprehension, spelling, and writing challenges, as well as difficulties with phonological processing like phonological awareness, phonological memory, or rapid automatic naming. Consequently, the diagnosis should call for action on,

#### **9.1 Measures of single-word (real word and nonsense word) reading in both timed and untimed measures**

There are several measures of single-word reading that are timed and untimed. Some of them with great options are


#### **9.2 Measures of oral reading fluency**

It is important to know how students are reading connected text as well as how quickly a child can read and also how accurately they are reading which requires

hearing them reading out loud. The tools which are available to measure oral reading fluency include,


The tools include tasks like Silently read a series of simple sentences and indicate if they are true or false (timed), read a passage orally as quickly as possible, orally read a list of single words or nonsense words (timed).

(Rate\*, Fluency\*)
