Fol­low­ing last week's ar­ti­cle which de­fined dyslex­ia and looked at signs and symp­toms of the con­di­tion, to­day, founder and chair­man of the Dyslex­ia As­so­ci­a­tion, Cathryn Kelshall will look at what can be done to help those who are dyslex­ic.

You can't pre­vent dyslex­ia but there are many ac­tiv­i­ties that you can do which will help your dyslex­ic child. Pre­ven­tion is bet­ter than cure so get in there ear­ly, but do re­mem­ber to have fun. If you get too se­ri­ous and anx­ious, you'll get re­sis­tance and it just won't work.

Preschool

�2 If your two-year old is not talk­ing, con­tact a speech and lan­guage ther­a­pist.

�2 Spend ex­tra time on lan­guage games and lis­ten­ing to sto­ries.

�2 Games that help co-or­di­na­tion such as clap­ping games, hop­ping, catch­ing a bean­bag are im­por­tant.

�2 Have eyes and ears test­ed.

School age

�2 If your child is tak­ing longer than his class­mates to learn his let­ters, have sight and hear­ing test­ed.

�2 Dyslex­i­cs learn dif­fer­ent­ly. Make sure that you find a tu­tor who has been trained in spe­cif­ic meth­ods for teach­ing dyslex­i­cs. Con­tact the Dyslex­ia As­so­ci­a­tion for screen­ing and re­fer­ral to a tu­tor in your area.

�2 Read to your child dai­ly. The Dyslex­ia As­so­ci­a­tion has a li­brary of au­dio for chil­dren. Au­dio books are al­so avail­able from the li­brary.

�2 Give con­stant pos­i­tive re­in­force­ment.

�2 Pro­vide time for ac­tiv­i­ties your child ex­cels in.

�2 Re­mem­ber a dyslex­ic has to put more ef­fort in­to writ­ten work than his class­mates. Ask the school if you can scribe some of his home­work for him, or ad­vo­cate for less writ­ten home­work.

Sec­ondary school

�2 Put your child's text­books on your phone, tablet or any oth­er de­vice for him to lis­ten to. You can al­so read the chap­ter to him be­fore he cov­ers it in class.

�2 Proof­read his work and help him make a check­list of er­rors he makes so that he can start check­ing for them him­self.

�2 Help him with or­gan­i­sa­tion­al skills. For ex­am­ple, paste a timetable on the bed­room door so that he re­mem­bers his games kit, or the sci­ence project that is due.

�2 Praise ef­fort.

Adult

�2 Blame your dyslex­ia for your dif­fi­cul­ty with words but re­mem­ber to thank it for your tal­ents with vi­su­al im­ages and your ex­cel­lent spa­tial in­tel­li­gence.

�2 Look in­to voice to print soft­ware.

�2 Ask your work­place for the tech­nol­o­gy you need.

�2 Search out dyslex­ic col­leagues and dis­cuss cop­ing strate­gies.

�2 For more in­for­ma­tion don't hes­i­tate to call the Dyslex­ia As­so­ci­a­tion at 625-5869 or vis­it us: www.dyslex­i­att.org.