Journal Article Critique - Essay Example

Your F. Psychology 101 6 December Journal Article Critique The article that I chose to critique is “Outsmarting Dyslexia” by Kelley King Heyworth in the December 2011 issue of Parents Magazine. The main point of this article is to help parents be able to determine whether or not they will have a reading disability in years before school starts. This article indicates that a parent can determine whether or not their child will suffer from the dyslexia learning disability in the early stages of life, as early as even being a toddler.

This article states that as many as one in five students has some sort of level of dyslexia and is the most common learning disability there is. In summary, this article first introduces a young 10-year-old girl that is very bright, has a wonderful memory and is actually very smart. However, she was diagnosed with having dyslexia and struggles with her writing and reading disability in school. However, she was worked with by a reading specialist and eventually was able to catch up to her grade level in reading.

One thing about this article is that it goes on to tell that a parent can determine whether or not the child may have struggles with dyslexia at the toddler stage in life and can identify signs that are indicative of the disability. Signs can be identified as early as when the child starts to speak, though they may never be diagnosed and if they are, it will be at a later school age. That is a few years wasted, especially if parents can step in early on to try to get the child to cope with their disability and get a head start on trying to conquer it so they will not struggle as much down the road.

This article also states that oftentimes psychologists and school staff and testers may be hesitant to label a child as dyslexic and instead generalize the disorder, giving the child the title of “impaired,” “struggling,” or even “different.” This article also indicates that has the world has changed, children that even a decade or so ago were determined to be slow or unmotivated when in fact they simply were just having issues with dyslexia. Instead, many of the world's most renowned analytical thinkers such as Albert Einstein and Leonardo di Vinci were also dyslexic.

Kids with dyslexia often have problems identifying the difference between a “b” and a “d” in lowercase letters and may also have problems with the “k” and “c” spellings of words. That seems to sound pretty typical of a young child. Experts advise that if dyslexia runs in the family, it could also be passed down to the younger children. Parents should take notice if the toddler has problems getting words out and this indicates word-retrieval issues. The article also insists that parents get their child evaluated immediately and take steps such as tutoring as soon as possible.

This article goes along with child developmental psychology and also strongly correlates with intelligence and brightness as well as functioning. This article could help psychologists and educational specialists to determine how to attack the issue of dyslexia before it leads to other childhood development issues. In some ways, dyslexia and its impact on a child in their life somewhat correlates with Erik Erikson's theory on development that begins in childhood and the stages that he says a person goes through.

Success or failure can result in overall distress and disfunctioning in society, not just in school related activities. It could hinder overall development. Depression or social anxiety could easily stem from this at a later point in life if the child continues to struggle with dyslexia and become emotionally distressed because of their inability to cope with it and have problems performing in social situations for fear that some of the other kids may make fun of them which could then turn into a feeling of hopelessness and sadness which is damaging to the child's psyche and could make them self-conscious about the issue for the entire span of their lives.

This article also determined that brain scans can help identify dyslexia, showing that areas of the brain that involve speech recognition are inactive and may even closely identify with neuropsychology issues. Dyslexia is identified in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV) as a learning disorder. This indicates that a child or any person scores low on an aptitude test showing that reading, writing or mathematical achievements are below expectations for their age and grade in school.

Being diagnosed with a learning disorder can affect motivation, achievement and peer relationships. This article obviously is targeted at young parents that may notice that there are some issues with the way their child is developing in terms of speech. It is intended for the parent to become aware that there are ways to identify the problem at an early age and that there are also ways to combat it so that it does not spiral out of control at a later age, affecting all other aspects of life. Instead, a child can be tutored and counseled enough to keep up and to be at the point that they should be.

If a parent suspects that something is wrong with their child, this article encourages that they do something about it and consider evaluation before their child gets any older and becomes further hindered. Early intervention could be key to helping the child feel success when they first start school and later on in life. I think that the article was very informative to anyone that would be a parent. However, I think it lacks a bit on additional signs that may be indicative of dyslexia. I think that in general most kids have issues with k's, c's and b's and d's at a young age so it is hard to determine if that really is a hard theory to base a possible disorder on.

I do think that it raises awareness for parents with toddlers, however, it may make the parent more paranoid. I think any young parent could identify with the subject. Works Cited Heyworth, Kelly King. “Outsmarting Dyslexia.” Parents Magazine December 2011: pages 48-54. Print.