University of the Punjab

Department of English Language Teaching and Linguistics

Types of Dyslexia
I your child struggles with reading, sounding out words, or understanding what they’ve read,
they may have a learning disorder called dyslexia. Dyslexia can be developmental (genetic)
or acquired (resulting from a traumatic brain injury or disease), and there are several types of
Dyslexia including phonological dyslexia, rapid naming dyslexia, double deficit dyslexia,
surface dyslexia, and visual dyslexia. Each type of dyslexia presents its own unique set of
symptoms and challenges, detailed below.
Estimates regarding the prevalence of dyslexia state that between five and 20% of the
population experience reading challenges. To find the most effective teaching strategies, it’s
essential to be able to identify the problem early and understand that there are several types of
dyslexia.

What Is Dyslexia?

Dyslexia is a learning disability that hinders an individual’s ability to read by affecting

spelling, writing, and comprehension skills. Dyslexia is not a learning disability that a child
will outgrow, so it’s important to pursue a diagnosis and implement strategies to improve
reading ability at a young age. Anyone can be diagnosed with dyslexia, although the dyslexia
testing process is different for adults than it is for children. Often, individuals with dyslexia
can be very creative and intelligent yet struggle with basic reading skills.
Dyslexia symptoms include:
• Difficulty learning new words
 • Delayed speech development
• Difficulty with rhyming words
• Confusing letters for each other
• Reading below the expected level for age
• Grammar issues
• Problems spelling
• Poor sentence structure
• Lack of phonemic awareness
• Avoidance of reading aloud
• Difficulty copying words from a secondary source
In addition, there are subtle behavioral signs to watch for in children with dyslexia, including:
• Withdrawal from peers
• Depression
• Misbehavior or acting out
• Self-esteem issues
• Peer and sibling relationship difficulties
• Loss of interest in school
• Appearing unmotivated or lazy
Recognizing early symptoms of dyslexia can help diagnose the disability sooner, providing a
more significant overall opportunity to improve.
What Are the Different Types of Dyslexia?
Experts have created categories to group several common types of dyslexia together to
increase the effectiveness of treatment. Being familiar with the different types of dyslexia
will allow educators to develop strategies specific to the child’s needs in order to provide the
best support possible.
Phonological Dyslexia
This type of dyslexia is the most thought of when someone mentions the word dyslexia. It
deals with difficulties in matching sounds to symbols and breaking down the sounds of
language. Individuals with phonological dyslexia struggle to decode or sound out words. It’s
believed that phonological dyslexia is the most common type of dyslexia. Symptoms of
phonological dyslexia may include:
• Difficulty learning sounds made by letters/letter combinations
• Difficulty sounding out unfamiliar words
 • Difficulty spelling
• Spelling the same word different ways on the same page
• Slow reading
• Avoiding reading activities
• Difficulty recognizing familiar words in new contexts
Rapid Naming Dyslexia
People who struggle with the ability to rapidly name colors, numbers, and letters when
presented with them may have rapid naming dyslexia. This type of dyslexia may be linked to
both reading speed and the processing speed for reading. Individuals with rapid naming
dyslexia can say the names of the colors, numbers, and letters, but it often takes them much
longer to come up with the correct word. Symptoms of Rapid naming dyslexia may include:
• Difficulty retrieving words
• Frequently substituting words or leaving words out altogether
• Slow to respond orally
• Slower to complete reading or writing assignments
• Making up nonsense words in place of real words
• Using gestures in place of words
Double Deficit Dyslexia
A person with double deficit dyslexia struggles with two aspects of reading. These two
aspects often include naming speed and identifying the sounds in words. This type of
dyslexia is a combination of rapid naming and phonological and is not uncommon; however,
it is largely regarded as the most severe type of dyslexia. Symptoms of double deficit
dyslexia include:
• Poor naming speed rate when asked to recall words
• Weak phonological awareness
Surface Dyslexia
An individual who can sound out new words with ease but fails to recognize familiar words
by sight may have surface dyslexia. In this case, experts believe that the brain fails to
recognize what a word looks like in order to process the word quickly. This type of dyslexia
affects words that need to be memorized because they don’t sound how they are spelled,
making it more difficult to sound them out. It’s not uncommon for an individual with
dyslexia to also have both phonological and surface dyslexia. Symptoms of surface dyslexia
can include:
• Difficulty with whole word recognition
• Slow to read
 • Avoidant of reading activities
• Difficulty with spelling
• Difficulty reading words that don’t sound the way they’re spelled
• Difficulty reading new words by sight
Visual Dyslexia
When a child struggles to remember what they saw on a page, they may have visual dyslexia.
This type affects the visual processing, making it so that the brain doesn’t get the complete
picture of what the eyes see. Visual dyslexia will affect the ability to learn how to spell or
form letters because both require the brain to remember the correct letter sequence or shape,
impacting the learning process. Symptoms of visual dyslexia include:
• Text appearing blurred or going in and out of focus
• Difficulty tracking across lines of text
• Difficulty keeping place in text
• Text appearing double or alternating between single and double
• Headaches and/or eyestrain associated with reading
Categories of Dyslexia
Developmental Dyslexia
Developmental dyslexia refers to dyslexia which is genetic and/or present at birth.
Developmental dyslexia includes both primary and secondary dyslexia. This type of dyslexia
is more common in boys and typically diminishes as the child matures.
Primary Dyslexia
If the dyslexia results from a genetically inherited condition, it is considered primary
dyslexia. A child whose parents have dyslexia increases the chance that they will also have
dyslexia. Interestingly enough, primary dyslexia seems to have a familial connection with
even more prevalence among males, especially left-handed ones.
Secondary Dyslexia
Secondary dyslexia is the result of problems with brain development during the early stages
of pregnancy. Both primary and secondary dyslexia are developmental because the disability
is present at birth.
Acquired Dyslexia
When a traumatic brain injury or disease affects the brain’s centers responsible for language
processing, they can sometimes develop dyslexia. This type of dyslexia is also referred to as
trauma dyslexia because it’s caused by trauma to the brain and is the only type of dyslexia
with a known cause.

There are several other learning difficulties that a person diagnosed with dyslexia may
experience more prevalently. These are not types of dyslexia, and experts believe they are
neurological in nature. These learning difficulties include:
• Verbal dyslexia.
• Left-right disorder. The inability to tell your left from your right is sometimes referred
to as directional dyslexia.
• Dysgraphia. When individuals have difficulty with writing and other fine motor skills,
that affects word spacing, sizing, spelling, legibility, and expression.
• Dyscalculia. An impairment to the ability to performing accurate math calculations,
problem solving and reasoning, learning number-related concepts, and performing
basic math skills. Dyscalculia is sometimes called number or math dyslexia.
• Auditory processing disorder. Individuals with auditory processing disorder
experience problems with the brain’s ability to process various speech sounds. This
disorder is sometimes referred to as auditory dyslexia.