What is Dyslexia?

Dyslexia is, by definition from the British Dyslexia Association, ‘a learning difficulty that primarily affects the skills involved in accurate and fluent word reading and spelling. Characteristic features of dyslexia are difficulties in phonological awareness, verbal memory, and verbal processing speed. These can manifest in various ways, and there are varying degrees of ‘severity’ of dyslexia.

Dyslexia can affect people across all ranges of ability, intellect, and background. It does not only affect the ability to read and write. Dyslexia can also affect coordination, organisation, and memory. Therefore, each person with dyslexia has a different experience that is completely unique.

Signs of Dyslexia (Adults)

We have chosen to focus on adults for this page as the Police Family is, fundamentally, all adults. That said, Police Cadets fall into Secondary School Age, and resources for signs of dyslexia in teenagers can be found here (British Dyslexia Associaion). If you are involved with Police Cadets, we highly recommend that you follow that link.

Information included here is from the BDA.

Adults with Dyslexia may:

• Confuse visually similar words such as cat and cot
• Spell erratically
• Find it hard to scan or skim text
• Read and/or write slowly
• Need to re-read paragraphs to understand them
• Find it hard to listen and maintain focus
• Find it hard to concentrate if there are distractions
• Feel sensations of mental overload / switching off
• Have difficulty telling left from right
• Get confused when given several instructions at once
• Have difficulty organising thoughts on paper
• Often forget conversations or important dates
• Have difficulty with personal organisation, time management, and prioritising tasks
• Avoid certain types of work or study
• Find some tasks really easy, but are unexpectedly challenged by others
• Have poor self-esteem, especially if dyslexic difficulties were not identified earlier in life