Does My Teenager Have Dyslexia?! Top Signs To Look For

Many dyslexic kids can get to middle school or even high school without being identified as dyslexic. If you're wondering if your teenager might have dyslexia, stay tuned. We're going to cover some of the top signs that you could look out for.

Hey, everyone. We're Nick and Sonja, and this is Dyslexia Journey, where we help you support the dyslexic kid in your life. And this video is part of a series that we've been doing on signs to look out for at different ages and grade levels to try to figure out if you'd like to have your kid assessed to see if they're dyslexic. And today we are covering the older age group here, which is kind of more like middle school, high school.

We're calling it the teen years. And, you know, it might surprise you to know that that's actually not uncommon, that a lot of kids actually are not diagnosed until later. And that's kind of unfortunate because, as we've discussed before, the earlier that a child is identified, sometimes the better for helping them remediate. But don't fear, if you're a parent of a teenager and you think your child has dyslexia, like, it's never too late to dig into it and to try to get it identified.

Yeah. So the first category that we want to talk about where you might see some signs of your kid potentially being dyslexic is written work, which might feel like a fairly obvious one, right? Because we think of reading and writing is very related to dyslexia. And overall, the thing to look out for is that they might be a lot more able to explain concepts or tell stories orally than in written form.

So there'd be this big discrepancy, this big difference between how they're expressing, how they're getting that expression across, whether they're explaining a concept, whether it's storytelling, whatever category of kind of content that is, that they're better at it when they are speaking about it. Mm-hmm. And this might show up, for example, in middle school and in high school, kids start learning how to write sort of persuasive essays, five-paragraph essays, those kind of things.

And it might show up as maybe you're talking to your teenager about the topic and they will expound on it and talk. And the way they talk about it, you're thinking, oh, great, they've got a really good grasp of this. They're going to write a great essay. And then they sit down to write it and you look at it and it's like, you know, very minimal, just a few sentences, not nearly to the level of what they were talking about verbally.

And that's because the actual written aspect of it is just so difficult for someone with dyslexia that they're going to, they might tend to do as little as possible, sort of minimal amount of the actual writing. Right. And it can also look like in school, if it's a time situation, that they're not able to finish. And maybe, you know, maybe to a larger degree, sometimes other people aren't able to finish too, but like to a large degree, they have very little output in the amount of time that's allotted.

And then also sort of the actual practical, physical aspects of written work. People with dyslexia often have poor handwriting as well, which is technically something different called dysgraphia, but it's very correlated. Right. So if it's a written form, you might also notice that the handwriting is very hard to read. Yeah. And then another aspect of written work is the spelling. And again, this is fairly obvious. This is what people sort of traditionally think of as dyslexic characteristics.

But it's worth noting that one kind of specific characteristic about spelling that dyslexic kids often have is inconsistency. So they might misspell the same word two different ways in the same paragraph, or they might spell it correctly in one sentence and incorrectly in the next sentence. So that's, that's, that's another thing to look out for specifically with the spelling. And they will have more likelihood of also spelling things phonetically, you know, just straight out, like how it sounds, not necessarily, so it's not always just about like, do I use and, you know, a pH here and F, but it can also be just like the whole word is written out kind of more how it sounds, which in English can be fairly obvious.

That it's, that it's, that it's, that they're doing that because often like how things are written out with all our vowels and the way things work, you know, isn't obvious unless you know how to spell it. Mm-hmm. And then another aspect of written work that, wasn't obvious to me at first is, sort of trouble with capitalization and with punctuation. That seems to be especially difficult, so when to use a comma, when to use a period, when to use a colon or a semicolon, and then consistent capitalization, of words according to the sort of standard rules in English, seems to be surprisingly difficult for, dyslexic kids.

Yeah. And one more quick thing I wanted to add to spelling, you know, in this day and age where they can use spell check. So, you know, by the time they're in the, into the, into middle school and high school, they're probably using spell check, which is fantastic. Right. It's helpful, especially for dyslexic kids who have trouble spelling. but so then it might be a little more subtle how it appears. It's going to be more in like homophones. So, you know, they'll still get there. the T H E R E one, they might have the T H E R E.

E I R one instead or something like that. So the next category is more in generally how they do their schoolwork and how they do their tests. Yeah. So, there are a couple or a few, specific, things to look for in this category. that might be indications that you're a teenager might be dyslexic. so the first one that we thought of is messing up scantron answers. So. for those of you who aren't familiar with this, a scantron is, is, a form where you just bubble in for multiple choice questions, the correct answer, and then there's a machine that can grade it automatically.

and this is, predictably, I would say difficult for dyslexic kids to do their work on one paper, come up with an answer and then, fill in the correct bubble with the correct, letter on a completely different paper. so if you, if you see problems with that, that, that could be an indication, that your teenager has dyslexia. Right. Because often dyslexic people have difficulty with, the lines, like if they're reading, they might skip a line or, you know, as they come to the end of it and wrapping around.

So it's kind of a similar issue with like where, where you are in a particular line, where you are in a particular answer for the scantron bubbling in. and that, that issue actually leads to our next point as well, which is, a tendency to, to maybe, copy down the wrong problem from a book that they're working on. So this is, would be for, for something like math, if they're working out of a book or, a problem set that's online and they're, they're, copying it down, to their paper, they might, they might copy the wrong problem.

And then, if it's not caught, they'll do the whole problem and then do, you know, extra work or, and not, not, not, not even be doing the work they're supposed to be doing. And then the next one is that they may avoid reading instructions. It might just sort of even be automatic because they liked, you know, like to skip some reading. They might not even almost notice they're doing it. and so of course that can lead to errors that were, because they didn't realize that that was in the, something particular instruction was there that they didn't follow.

And so, you know, anyone can do this, but it's definitely like one of the signs. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's, for dyslexic kids, as we've talked about many times, reading just takes more effort for them than for other kids. And so, especially, if they're in an exam situation or, or even doing homework, anything that's, that's gonna involve a lot of work, they're gonna, you know, probably even subconsciously try to optimize that work. And so if, you know, they, they, they, they just have a tendency to jump straight to the question and to skip the instructions.

So the next indication that your teenager might have dyslexia is if they, struggle kind of disproportionately with word problems in math. Like if they're, sort of okay with the, the actual mathematical calculations, but, but then they really have trouble with, with word problems. For example, in, trigonometry, a lot of it comes up even in just in, in, pre-algebra, actually it starts, where, where there'll be a sort of a written description of a situation that you have to kind of turn into, mathematical, equation or relationship.

And, we've noticed, with our daughter that, that she, she sometimes especially has trouble when things involve directions in the, in the word problems or, or just translating, any sort of, description like to a drawing or, or to a formula. Another thing you might notice if you are trying to assess whether or not your teen might be dyslexic is that they might retain knowledge better. They might remember things for tests better, for example, if the knowledge was presented to them in more of an interactional style, more of a hands-on style in particular, possibly also, learning it more orally.

Though sometimes people also have oral processing issues, so that isn't always true, but, you know, more so to be these kinds of things, hands-on or oral or interactional, that that helps them really learn and retain the material more than just reading it. And then the, the last sort of general school-related sign that your teenager might have dyslexia is if they do, better compared to their peers on harder material than on easier material.

And this is super counterintuitive for a lot of people, you know, even, even for us, who have, have lived with this for a while with our daughter, even recently, you know, she was telling us that she, felt like this math test that she just took was the easiest material in theory. And she actually did, the worst on that compared to the rest of the class than she had on any other math tests this entire semester.

And, I, that reminded us that, that this is often true for dyslexic kids, that what is quote easy for other people or hard for other people is not necessarily the same for dyslexic kids. It's because, dyslexic kids are often better and quicker at grasping the higher level, harder concepts and they tend to make more mistakes on, sort of the, the, the calculations, maybe lining things up. And so if there's always going to be sort of that, that, basic level of mistakes on easy material, then they're going to tend to do better than their peers on the harder material, if that makes sense.

Yeah. And even within that particular test, she got the hardest problem, correct. But then she had a lot of those other mistakes, like you were talking about on the early retail, which is why she didn't do well on it. and I just wanted to also say that this might look really patchy though, because of course there's going to be some kinds of material where if they're only learning it in a way that they're not able to access, you know, then they can't get to the deeper content, content necessarily.

So there's also an element where it just looks really patchy, like in terms of like how they're doing, but then it's like not always that, that the, harder material is more difficult, but it might not be in every subject. All right. Zooming out a little more, here are a few more, signs that we've thought of that you could look out for to see if your teenager might have dyslexia. the first one is if they avoid reading, they will tend to not read for pleasure very much.

they'll tend to avoid reading as we've discussed in other episodes, they'll tend to avoid reading in many contexts, including restaurant menus, you know, stuff outside of school as well. Right. And school or schoolwork also might be really exhausting for them. So just from more of that general perspective, it just takes them so much effort. So it's not like they're just going to whip. Oh, okay. I have to do my assignment and maybe they're happy or not happy about it, but they kind of are able to just whip it off or just do it. It feels like much more of a chore probably.

Mm-hmm. And in general, I would say the, the, the number one thing to look for to assess if your child, if your teenager has dyslexia is, if you can sense a discrepancy between, how kind of, intelligent and capable that they are. And that they're able to express to you verbally and orally, if you can, see a discrepancy between that and how well they do in school. that's, that's the biggest indication. you as the parent, you know, you, you should trust your instincts here.

All right. And then the final category we want to talk about are things that are considered more positive, that might be indications that your teen is dyslexic. So, one of them is that they might be kind of entrepreneurial. So maybe they've started a business or started a YouTube channel. There is a correlation between entrepreneur, entrepreneurship actually, and being dyslexic. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I think it's important to, talk about these positive traits because again, and we've talked about this before, dyslexia is often framed as, as, a disability or, or only has negative characteristics.

And it's important to remember that there are a lot of positive characteristics that are associated as well. All right. So the, second, more positive, characteristic that might be an indication that your teenager has dyslexia. Is if they have really good observational skills. So they might be able to tell you, in their English class two years ago, exactly where everybody sat. and if, if the seats were rearranged several times during the year, they could probably tell you every time, it was rearranged where everybody was sitting.

and this goes along with, and this goes along with, I think in general, the, one of the key strengths of dyslexia is this 3d spatial awareness, and which leads to these, these, strong observational skills. Right. And so that could look anything like they're good at building or have sort of that engineering mind to a more artistic, way that that shows up. and then another category here of positive traits that might show up in your dyslexic teen or, or your teen who you think might be dyslexic is really good, big picture thinking.

And that can often then lead to an ability to solve problems too. Sometimes almost in an intuitive way, it could show up that way. The last indication that we're going to discuss today, that your teenager might have dyslexia is, they might have strong verbal skills or at least verbal skills that appear stronger than their written skills. And we talked about this a little bit earlier. but I really want to really want to bring it up again, to discuss it, to frame it in a more positive way, which is that, they might be really good, at, they, they might have a large vocabulary, surprisingly large, given that they might avoid reading. they might be really good at public speaking.

They might not be like, this isn't necessarily true of everyone with, with dyslexia, but it's, it's one possible indication. And if you want to dig into this a little deeper, we do have one source that we'll put in the description box for you as well. But the main thing we want to leave you with again, kind of like we said at the beginning is it's never too late. It's still important to follow up on this. If you suspect that you're a teen might be dyslexic.