ADVANCING LEARNING through INCLUSION
dysortography
What does dysortography involve?
Dysortography is a learning disorder that presents significant and persistent difficulties in automating and internalising spelling norms. Dystography is also considered to be a neurodevelopmental disorder.
Dysortography relates not only to the internalisation of spelling norms but may also involve difficulties with sound and letter correspondence. Developing spelling awareness by encouraging students to revise their own work can help greatly
Bearing in mind that each case is different, the most frequent symptoms are:
Phoneme substitution due to similar sounds (for example, f/z, t/d, p/b).
Omissions: both in consonant blends (2 consonants in the same syllable, for example, writing ‘sand’ instead of ‘stand’ and syllable confusion (letters that are not easily identified in speech, for example, writing ‘wel’ instead of ‘well).
Additions: adding letters, syllables or even words.
Inversions of graphemes, syllables or words.
Substitution of similar graphemes (d/b, b/p) or graphemes that look similar (m/n, a/e).
Word confusion: confusing words that look similar but have different meanings.
Punctuation errors.
Capital letters: not using capital letters after a full stop or at the beginning of a sentence.
ENABLING STRATEGIES
Intervention needs to occur in all the stages of education and in all subjects to ensure that students with Specific Learning Difficulties (SLD) have an equal opportunity to learn. The most important measures to be taken are:
Spelling errors
Do not penalise spelling errors as they are a symptom of the disorder.
Computers
Allow students to use a computer to write.
Spell check
Allow students to use a spell checker.
Type face
Decide with students the most legible and comfortable typeface to use. We recommend sans-serif.
Oral exams
Give students the option of being examined or tested orally.
Most students who experience dysortography will probably have dyslexia. For this reason, it’s very important to keep in mind the enabling strategies for dyslexia.
With the collaboration of…
DISFAM
International Dyslexia and Family Organisation
DISFAM is the first non-profit Latin American organisation founded in Spain at the end of 2001. It is made up of families of children with dyslexia, adults with dyslexia and professionals from different fields that decided to join together because of their concern with problems experienced by children and adults and also the emotional consequences of the disorder.
DISFAM belongs to the European Association of Dyslexia (EDA) and the Federación de Dislexia Española (FEDIS). It is present in most Latin American countries
