by Gioele Cedro and Sharon Puccio
Short Intervention Psychologists trained in Single Session Therapy
www.psicologitirreno.it

DSA: how to recognize it and how to treat it?

As the speech therapist Rossella Grenci reveals in her book Eagles were born to fly :

“There are children who may have difficulties in reading, spelling, calculating or remembering the multiplication tables by heart, or in the most trivial things, such as reading a watch or tying their shoes.
This is why they are often labeled as listless, lazy, or unintelligent. Instead they only have dyslexia: dyslexia is a different kind of learning . “

What surprises us most when we hear about dyslexic children for the first time is certainly the fact that in addition to the many academic and daily difficulties they have great cognitive abilities .
Most of them are very creative and manage to cope in a variety of situations by relying on cognitive skills, inventiveness and imagination. They find alternative ways to do what others do by following conventional ways. From primary school they develop creative methods to face the first challenges such as reading, writing or memorizing multiplication tables.

For this reason it is very difficult to identify a dyslexic child . Precisely because it is possible that during his school studies he invented alternative learning techniques with which, apparently, he is able to read, write and count like other children. In reality, having difficulty in coding letters and numbers, he has to put in a lot of energy and time to get a sufficient result.

If the child with ASD is identified and diagnosed, they can be helped and supported with a variety of tools and techniques. To help him better, we need to identify early signs in the pre-school phase that allow us to intervene and give adequate support to the child who will have to interface with school and daily activities.
It is necessary to observe the child very carefully and notice how he expresses himself, how he speaks, how he identifies letters and sounds, how he draws and how he encodes the sounds in the environment.

• One of the first signs that we must grasp is undoubtedly the level of linguistic development. It is possible that there is a language delay which leads to difficulties in speech production and understanding, a very poor vocabulary, difficulty in formulating complete sentences and expressing oneself clearly.
  Children with speech difficulties express themselves in short sentences and often have poor gesture communication, know few words and have difficulty learning short nursery rhymes and rhyming phrases. They also have difficulty understanding what others are saying and, if the sentence is too long, they lose the thread.
• The praxis-motor activity area is affected in children with ASD.
  They have difficulty coordinating movements that lead to a certain end, such as drawing, representing geometric figures or tying their shoes.
• They have visuo-spatial difficulties, they are unable or not very successful in repeating and identifying tones, sounds, syllables and similar words, they have poor coordination skills in manipulation games and labyrinths, difficulty in cutting or building.

By being able to grasp these early signs, it is possible to intervene and immediately provide support to the child through compensatory tools. One of the things to do if dyslexia is suspected is to be supervised by a professional . The professional can be a child psychologist or neuropsychiatrist who will subject the child to specially formulated tests and tests, which will allow a diagnosis to be made in line with the child’s skills. The diagnosis can be made if the so-called diagnostic criteria are met.

Dyslexia, according to the scientific community, is part of the specific learning disabilities.
The specific learning disorder encompasses a number of obstacles that the person encounters in the process of reading, writing and calculating. We speak of dyslexia in the case of difficulty in reading, dyscalculia in the case of difficulty in calculating, spelling and dysgraphia in the case of difficulty in writing.

The scientific community has decided to enclose all these critical issues within a single category: Specific Learning Disorder (SLD) .
The diagnostic category is recognized worldwide and in fact appears in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5).

The DSM-5 lists a number of diagnostic criteria, behaviors and symptoms, which lead to a diagnosis of Specific Learning Disorder.
The first diagnostic criterion is the presence of difficulties in the learning process and in the use of school skills . If the child has trouble recognizing words and understanding the meaning of what he is reading, he probably needs to start investigating and studying the problem further.
The second diagnostic criterion is the level of impairment in school or work performance, or in activities of daily living. Learning difficulties usually begin during primary school .
Finally, the last criterion is met if the learning difficulties are not justified by other causes: intellectual disabilities, visual and hearing difficulties or mental or neurological disorders, psychosocial difficulties or lack of knowledge of the language of school instruction, or inadequate school education.

After making the diagnosis, what can we do to concretely help the child?

First you need to activate compensatory tools that will allow the child to better interface with daily and school tasks.
One of the compensatory tools that is gaining ground in this period is the PC with related software that allow the child to learn in an alternative way.
Compensatory software is especially useful in the learning phase, which is the most complex. The child can learn through multimedia maps where he can insert figures, sounds or videos that recall the concept he has to acquire. It will be easier for the child to understand and learn a piece of history or a short essay if, in addition to words, he can associate images, sounds or short videos. So far the method that has proved most useful in learning for children with SLD is the association of the written text with pictures, vocal explanation and maps that allow the child to learn and then memorize.

It must be borne in mind that the compensatory tools during the learning process are not enough on their own, it is also necessary to support the memorization of new concepts.
Learning and memorization travel together and if one fails, the other will also suffer slowdowns. Helping a child to learn and learn is not enough because you also need to allow them to remember what they are studying. Memory is fundamental in understanding and learning processes . In the case of children with specific learning disabilities, feeding support is vital .

Exerens offers a natural supplement called Memorens in the form of oral solution or tablets specifically formulated for children and adolescents useful in the memorization process because it helps, in addition to memory, cognitive functions in general. It also contains active ingredients that prevent oxidative stress and protect neuronal cells.

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References

• Grenci R., “Eagles are born to fly”, 2004
• www.anastasis.it
• American Psychiatric Association (APA) (2013), DSM-5. Diagnostic and statistical manual of the
• mental disorders, tr. it. Raffaello Cortina, Milan, 2014
• Stella, G. (2010). Specific learning disorders: an introduction. Dyslexia and specific learning disorders, 3.
• CATTANEO, SLA DSA.
• www.miur.gov.it/dsa