Assessing Resilience in Dyslexic Individuals - Essay Sample

Introduction

Dyslexic individuals have learning difficulties that tend to cause other problems with spelling, reading and writing. If one grows up with appropriate academic and socio-economic stress, they have a high chance of growing up to be happy, successful and adaptive (Panicker & Chelliah, 2016). An individual's temperament differences like levels of emotional reactivity or low social engagement can be a predictor of how they are likely to have problems at school (Precenzano et al., 2016). The process of learning to read is multifaceted, and it relies on developing perceptual and cognitive skills that are present even before birth. The paper will consider assessing resilience in dyslexia among children aged between 3 and 8.

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One way of assessing resilience in dyslexic individuals is to operationalize cognitive factors like referencing related disorders or significant genetic risks (Ungar, 2005). In this category, the children who show cognitive resilience are the ones with neurobiological risk factors for reading disorders like the presence of risk genes, a family history or phonological processing deficits (Zuk et al., 2020). There are those children who display the characteristics of reading disorders like comprehension as they show cognitive resilience (Yu et al., 2018).

The resilience scale is one tool that can determine the level of resilience among the children. It measures the capacity of the child to withstand life stressors whereby they can thrive through them and make meaning from these challenges (Glazzard, 2012). It contains questions where children can answer characteristics that they find meaningful in life, self-reliance and perseverance. A parent interview proforma is also another tool to assess resilience as the questions are designed to relate to a parent's details according to how they have observed their children (Martin et al., 2014). The tools are sensitive to the levels of resilience and can show when the child has the capacity to be resilient.

It is to be noted that anxiety and depression levels increase with age. This way, an eight-year-old may be more dissatisfied with their life compared to a three-year-old as well as their self-esteem being low (van Viersen et al., 2019). As children advance in age, they tend to have more substantial needs for self-esteem and peer acceptance. This way, if one is perceived as a good performer in academics, they will have gained self-respect from other students (Cavalli et al., 2018). If one has poor academic skills, their other talents also become unappreciated and are unnoticed (Haft et al., 2016). This way, it shows that their resilience level is low and the reading deteriorates even further because they are unable to keep up or internalize their emotions.

Children who have borderline intellectual functioning tend to have a high rate of academic problems, behavioural problems and retention of grades (Kalka & Lockiewicz, 2018). It is impossible for the younger children to have the cognitive capacity or maturity levels to compare themselves with older children and in turn, feel compromised by the poor performance (Muter & Snowling, 2009). At their age, they are too young to perceive the difference. This way, they can be said to have high resilience against the learning challenges (AlYagon & Margalit, 2006). At a young age, one feels more hopeful, and they are filled with positivity about experiences, strengths and their future too.

On the contrary, older children tend to have reached a level of cognitive maturity (Terras et al., 2009). It is such that they can perceive that their standards are comparable to their peers, and they feel a certain way if they are not at the top of academic performance (Fawcett et al., 1996). Such issues are objectively reflected through them having higher anxiety and depression levels. Younger children, in general, have a better ability to grasp new concepts quickly and hence a high level of resilience (Mackenzie, 2018). During most times, children with reading difficulties can be more depressed when compared to those with a reading disorder.

Children who have difficulties in reading are most likely aware of their situation of skill deficits (Cassar et al., 2005). They also realize that the issues with reading do not lead to severe problems even if they are not able to match the abilities of their peers (Mugnaini et al., 2009). In a classroom situation, it is possible that reading deficits are visible outwardly compared to others like writing, spelling or arithmetic because a child will be asked to stand and read out loud to the whole class and that may lead to significant anxiety (Strnadova, 2006). Such an issue can increase further if the parents do not adopt a supportive and critical approach towards solving it.

The present contemporary society is such that education is of high value and students have increased competition for academic capabilities. Children with specific learning disorders get extremely frustrated because they are at a greater risk of having developmental and emotional problems (Butler & Edmonson, 2009). More resilience can be instilled among individuals with dyslexia through a complete intervention program together with remedial training. It is necessary that there is remedial training such that one can incorporate the aspects of focusing on parental awareness of the effects of emotional disturbances on the children and thus strengthen a coping mechanism.

References

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