Decoding Dyslexia & Depression

In this article:

• What dyslexia is
• Signs of dyslexia
• How dyslexia is linked to depression
• Helping your child getting to the root of the problem
• 5 Signs of depression in kids with dyslexia

Sara Easter, an Arlington mom of three, knew something was wrong as soon as her youngest son started kindergarten. “By the end of pre-K, he was just really struggling with learning the ABC song and identifying letters and sounds,” she recalls. Then shortly after starting kindergarten, her outgoing, happy boy began crying every day at drop-off. “He wouldn’t talk much in class. He was just a different kid. The teacher was doing everything she could to help him, but there was just clearly something wrong.

“I figured we were probably looking at dyslexia because his reading was really where he struggled…it just was not clicking.”

Dyslexia—the most common specific learning disability, affecting up to 1 in 5 kids—can impact more than just how a child learns and reads. Individuals with dyslexia are at a higher risk of experiencing anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and other mental health challenges due to the academic and social difficulties associated with the condition. Like in Easter’s son’s case, sometimes stress, tears and isolation are secondary symptoms of the root cause.

The good news is with the right support, dyslexia can be managed, and kids can thrive, but the earlier it’s caught the better. Here’s more on this common learning difference, and how it can impact your child’s learning and mental health.

What is Dyslexia?

Popularly, dyslexia is associated with swapping letters or numbers in context, but it’s more complicated than that. Dyslexia is a difference in how some information is processed in the brain. Often, it appears alongside other processing disorders, like ADHD or auditory processing disorder. Individuals can have a processing difference in one area—such as reading, math or writing—or in all areas.

“He had struggled with switching ‘pa-sketti’ for ‘spaghetti,’ or ‘ma-rote’ for ‘remote,’ but we just thought it was adorable.”

“It’s an unexpected difficulty learning to read and spell, despite getting the same reading instruction everyone else gets,” explains Dr. Sheryl Frierson, medical director of the Luke Waites Center for Dyslexia and Learning Disorders at Scottish Rite for Children in Dallas. “It’s unexpected for a couple of reasons. First of all, it’s not a lack of instruction. It’s not a lack of having other strengths in learning. Oftentimes, individuals with difficulty learning to read due to dyslexia have very high IQs or very advanced vocabulary skills and are able to express their ideas verbally very well. They may have gifts in art, music, math.”

They have to be pretty smart to keep up, says Laurie Peterson, founder and executive director of Diagnostic Learning Services, with locations in Fort Worth and Plano, which specializes in diagnosing learning and processing disorders. “In those first three [school] years, we teach phonics the same way we’re teaching letter sounds, but for a child with dyslexia, it’s like we’re teaching it in German. It’s like a different language.”

What are the Signs of Dyslexia?

Mild dyslexia can be easily masked by students who use their comprehension skills to compensate for not being able to decode words. But it can show up early. “He had struggled with switching ‘pa-sketti’ for ‘spaghetti,’ or ‘ma-rote’ for ‘remote,’ but we just thought it was adorable,” says Richardson mom Brandi Nortman, whose son Max was diagnosed in grade school. “We would’ve never thought that’s an early sign of dyslexia.”

“Trouble with rhyming or mispronouncing words is a big one,” says Stacy Cox, a TEA-certified educational diagnostician and owner of the Texas Center for Educational Testing in Flower Mound. She also looks for anxiety associated with reading out loud. “Even in college kids and adults, you can just see the change in their demeanor as soon as you ask them to read.”

But dyslexia can manifest differently in boys and girls which may lead to girls being underdiagnosed. Research suggests that when boys are struggling in class, they’re more likely to disengage in disruptive ways, while in girls, it may be less obvious. Boys may act out or become class clowns to avoid doing things that are hard for them. Girls tend to avoid participating, says Deana Lee, a provider of dyslexia instruction for Little Elementary in Arlington. “The older they get, the more they will avoid,” she says.

Is Dyslexia Linked to Depression?

Dyslexia and mental health concerns like depression may appear together because of the stress the condition can cause or the wearing on a child’s self-esteem “If you do have dyslexia, you’re more likely to be exposed to being misunderstood, having false assumptions about your motivation and your ability to work,” explains Frierson.

The condition may also lead to social isolation, as kids might rather miss school than struggle in front of their peers. “They’ll go to the bathroom a lot during class. They don’t want to participate. If they’re asked to read in front of a class, they’re not going to do that. They’re going to go to the bathroom, need to go to the nurse, or just leave class,” says Lee. This avoidance and procrastination can lead to a cycle of disorganization, anxiety and depression as they get further behind in school.

The older students are when they get diagnosed, the more they struggle with self-esteem. And those feelings can linger at the back of students’ minds long after the struggle is gone. But here’s the good news: Feelings of depression and anxiety can start to turn around on their own when students start to see progress. “That confidence begins to boom,” says Peterson. “The kids are picking up books, and they’re getting excited about reading. It’s phenomenal.”

RELATED: Does Your Child Need Therapy?

Getting to the Root of the Problem

A dyslexia diagnosis gets your student into their school’s program, where they learn to read in a way that makes sense to the dyslexic brain. Students who start in first grade will generally be doing a two-year program that gets them on the same page as their peers by third grade. The older a student is, the longer it can take to get them caught up, which is why Scottish Rite also developed a program for older students, says Frierson.

“‘Mom! Did you know that dyslexia isn’t being dumb?’ He was just so excited to tell me about these famous people who were dyslexic.”

In addition to learning how to read in a way that makes sense to them, kids with a dyslexia diagnosis get accommodations that make it easier for them to focus on their work without reading getting in the way. This might look like verbal test-taking, more time on tests, getting word banks, or using manipulatives.

“When they first begin, we give them a lot of accommodations,” explains Lee, the dyslexia instructor at Little Elementary. “Then, as they go through the program, we start trying to pull those accommodations away to get them more independent.”

Students may continue to use accommodations on tests well after they have outgrown them for daily work, or for subjects other than reading and writing, so their ability to decode doesn’t get in the way of showing mastery in another subject.

Once kids get the right support and start making progress, the change can be almost instant. Easter vividly remembers her son Cooper’s first day in class with a reading specialist. “I picked him up and he was like, ‘Mom! Did you know that dyslexia isn’t being dumb?’ He was just so excited to tell me about these famous people who were dyslexic. By the end of first grade, he was completely back to his normal personality. He loved school. He still talks about first grade as one of his favorite years.”

5 Signs of Depression in Kids with Dyslexia

According to Understood For All, Inc., a nonprofit organization providing support and resources for people with learning differences, depression in kids with dyslexia looks pretty much the same as it would in any kid. If you think your child may be depressed, it’s important to seek help from a mental health professional. Here are signs to look out for:

1. Feeling very “down”
2. Changes in sleep and eating habits
3. Withdrawing from friends or favorite activities
4. Refusal to do homework or go to school
5. Feelings of hopelessness

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