What are the Common Characteristics of Adult Dyslexia?
Most adult dyslexics will exhibit a minimum of 10 of the subsequent traits and behaviors. These characteristics are often inconsistent and should vary depending upon the day or situation. If you, your friend, or an employee displays a minimum of 10 of those common symptoms, an initial consultation would be appropriate to ascertain it.
Symptoms of adult dyslexia
Examples of an employee with dyslexia:
- Will hide difficulties or not require handling problematic areas.
- Will conceal difficulties from co-workers, friends and even family.
- Will become frustrated at “planning meetings” and sequential tasks
- Will become frustrated or overwhelmed with long forms or sequential processes.
- Thrives in careers where visual-spatial/kinesthetic talents are often realized: for instance – Entrepreneurs, Engineers, Trades (carpentry, plumbing, electrical), Artisans, Interior Decorating, Actors, Musicians, Police/Investigation, Athletes, and Business Executives (usually with staff/assistants).
- May pass up promotions or advancement opportunities that might require more administrative work.
- Has difficulty focusing and staying on task – may feel easier managing many various tasks simultaneously.
- Will have difficulty with tests – passing standardized tests are often a barrier to career advancement.
- Highly successful/over achiever, or considered “not working up to potential.” Either way, displays extreme work ethic.
- May be a perfectionist and overreact once they make an error.
- Out-of-the-box thinker or operates with very strict rules for themselves.
- Learns best through hands-on experience, demonstrations, experimentation, observation, and visual aids.
- May be ready to sense emotions and energy of others.
- Remembers struggling in class.
- Frequently have dyslexic children and knowledge guilt when seeing own child struggle. Insecurities arise while reading to have children or helping them with homework.
- Easily distracted/annoyed by noises and other things in environment.
- May appear to “zone out” and be unaware that it’s happening.
- Enjoys video games.
- Misspeaks, misuses, or mispronounces words without realizing it.
- May have poor balance or is/was very athletic.
- May have excellent recall of events that were experienced or not remember in the least.
- May confuse past conversations or be accused of “not listening.”
- Difficulty remembering names of individuals without tricks, but remembers faces.
- Difficulty remembering verbal instructions or directions.
- Poor recall of conversations or sequence of events.
- Avoids reading aloud. May dislike speechmaking.
- Will commonly perceive that they “read better silently.”
- Has adopted compensatory tricks to recollect spelling and homonyms (their, there, they’re), or misuses homonyms and has poor or inconsistent/phonetic spelling.
- Reading fluency and comprehension fluctuates depending upon material.
- Frequently has got to re-read sentences so as to grasp.
- Fatigues or becomes bored quickly while reading.
- Reliance on others (assistants, spouses, significant others) for written correspondence.
- Uncertainty with words, punctuation, and spelling when writing. Reliance on spell-check and grammar-check.
- Words out of context look “wrong.”
- Poor handwriting – masks spelling mistakes.
- Writes with all capital letters, or mixes capital letters within words. Abbreviates words frequently.
- Math, Time Management, Directions. May understand higher math, but can’t show it on paper. May shine at math, or should believe tricks for remembering math facts. Also, relies on calculators or finger counting.
- May have difficulty with making change.
- Difficulty with left/right and/or North, South, East, West.
- Gets lost easily or never forgets an area they’ve been.
- Difficulty reading maps.
- May have anxiety or stress when driving in unfamiliar places. Relies on others to drive when possible.
- May lose track of your time and is usually late – or is extremely conscious of it and is very rarely late.
- Finds it difficult to estimate how long a task will fancy complete.
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