Literacy is the key that opens a new world of learning in childhood. In this great leap, dyslexia acts as an anchor that prevents progress. Fortunately, neuropsychological stimulation in dyslexia allows children to “unwind”, learn and overcome dyslexia. But in recent months, as psychologists, we have faced an unexpected problem: How to continue the interventions without working with the little ones physically? In the new path that we have undertaken in our center, Valpe Psychologists, we fortunately found NeuronUP. We would like to share with you our experience with a case of a child with dyslexia.

What is dyslexia: meaning of dyslexia

Dyslexia is a reading and writing learning disorder in which children with cognitive normative abilities have difficulty reciting the alphabet, naming letters, making simple rhymes, classifying sounds, reading fluently, or understanding what they are reading.

Abilities to stimulate in dyslexia

Literacy is a complex activity that involves different processes (e.g. access to pronunciation, identification of visual stimuli or grapheme-phoneme conversion) and different cognitive functions (perception, memory, attention, vocabulary). The processes or skills to be trained are specific to each child, so it is very important to carry out a complete evaluation to identify which skills need to be trained in each case.

Dyslexia in children: Carlos’ case

In our case, Carlos started working with us when he was 7 years old. His family told us that since pre-school Carlos had difficulties with letters. The family consulted with the teachers on several occasions, but they were told that in time he would adapt. Carlos is now in 2nd grade of elementary and spends many, many hours doing his homework. He needs his family to help him decipher the phrases of the exercises, his reading is very slow (syllabification) and he tends to “get lost” continuously. This has begun to interfere with daily functioning and the family needs help.

At Valpe Psychologists we work with children and adults from a cognitive-behavioral perspective. In our daily work, evaluation and intervention adjusted to the needs of the person are joined to the close and playful treatment so necessary in the work with children. We have a children’s room with many games, blackboard tables and all kinds of materials so that children and their families feel comfortable in the interventions.

Diagnosis of dyslexia

After evaluating intelligence, adaptive skills, language, attention and literacy, the Valpe Psychologists team concluded that Carlos presented difficulties in learning to read and write (risk of dyslexia) and everything indicates that next year he will meet the criteria for diagnosis.

We set out to work towards the following objectives:

• Increase interest in letters and words by generating positive experiences.
• Strengthen phonological awareness.
• Improve lexical and syllabic awareness.
• Increase processing speed.
• Strengthen attention and memory.
• Treatment for dyslexia: creativity

Treatment for dyslexia: creativity

Carlos was initially reluctant to work with lyrics, saying he didn’t like them and preferred that we make other kinds of games. We started our creativity, the plasticine, the images, the competitions in the basket and the metallic letters started to bring Carlos closer to reading. But suddenly, the world health situation caused by the COVID-19 made us cancel the sessions and pause the interventions while we looked for new tools.

Neuropsychological stimulation in dyslexia with NeuronUP

Carlos’ family needed to continue the intervention, but regular worksheets didn’t work for him. We found NeuronUP and decided to make the technological leap. We showed the family through a video call the games and activities we could do with NeuronUP.  Activities like Fishing for the Word, Letter Hiding or Connected Drawings were perfect to continue the progress.

In addition, we could combine them with other activities to work on other related cognitive functions such as memory (Sound Count) or processing speed (activities like Find Toby). We let Carlos try these activities alone for a couple of days and waited for his response.

Carlos’ reaction: Neuropsychological stimulation in dyslexia with NeuronUP

A few days later the family confirmed that Carlos was very happy with the activities. We decided to schedule a daily training with NeuronUP. To make him as motivated as possible we combined the most difficult activities (those related to letters and vocabulary) with games that were easier for him. We supported these activities with fortnightly video sessions during the quarantine period.

The new normality at Valpe Psychologists

Carlos and his family have resumed the face-to-face sessions, but do not want to give up digital activities. The activities and games that we do at the center are combined with this new digital tool so that dyslexia does not win out over him. It allows us to obtain very detailed information about your performance and gives us many options for personalization.

We are very happy to have this tool in our professional practice and we confess that we have also “played” many activities.

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Dyslexia: meaning, symptoms, types and dyslexic activities