What is dyslexia? A plain-English guide for parents
If you’ve started reading about dyslexia because something about how your child reads, spells or takes in information doesn’t quite add up, you’ve probably already found a lot of conflicting, technical, or frankly alarming information. This guide is meant to cut through that.
The short version
Dyslexia is a set of processing difficulties that affect how reading and spelling skills develop. It’s not connected to intelligence. Able, bright children and adults can be dyslexic, and it isn’t caused by how a child has been taught, or by a lack of effort at home or school.
If you’d like the precise wording, the full definition I use in my assessments, agreed by a panel of dyslexia experts in 2025, is on my Dyslexia page.
Underneath the reading and spelling difficulties, dyslexia is really about how the brain processes certain kinds of information, particularly the sounds within words (phonological processing), verbal memory, and processing speed. That’s why two dyslexic children can look quite different from each other. One might struggle mainly with spelling, another with reading fluency, another with organising written work, even though the underlying picture is similar.
It’s a continuum, not a category
One of the most useful things to understand is that dyslexia exists on a continuum rather than as a strict yes/no category. There isn’t a single test that produces a clean “dyslexic” or “not dyslexic” verdict in the way a blood test might. Instead, an assessment builds up a profile of relative strengths and difficulties, and an experienced assessor uses that profile, alongside background information, to reach a professional judgement.
That’s also why assessments take the form they do. A real assessment (see my Pre-16 and Post-16 diagnostic assessments) involves several hours of different tasks, not a quick questionnaire.
Strengths, not just difficulties
It’s easy for information about dyslexia to focus entirely on what’s difficult. The British Dyslexia Association is clear that dyslexic people often have real strengths alongside their difficulties, in areas like verbal reasoning, creative problem-solving, and visual or spatial thinking. An assessment that only lists problems isn’t giving the full picture. A good one should help your child understand their whole learning profile, strengths included.
What often comes alongside dyslexia
Dyslexia doesn’t always travel alone. It’s common for it to occur alongside other differences: attention and concentration difficulties (sometimes linked to ADHD), coordination differences (sometimes described as DCD or dyspraxia), or difficulties with maths (dyscalculia). Part of a thorough assessment is staying alert to these overlaps, since support that only addresses reading and spelling can miss part of the picture.
What an assessment can, and can’t, tell you
A diagnostic assessment gives you a clear, written account of how your child learns: where their strengths lie, where they find things harder, and what kind of support tends to help people with a similar profile. Schools, colleges and universities can use that report when they’re considering things like exam access arrangements.
What an assessment can’t do is guarantee a particular outcome. It doesn’t automatically produce extra time in exams, a particular type of funding, or a fixed programme of support. Those decisions sit with schools, exam boards, or funding bodies, informed by the report rather than dictated by it. I’d rather be upfront about that than let anyone expect more than an assessment can honestly deliver.
Where to go from here
If any of this sounds familiar, the next reasonable step is usually a conversation, not a commitment. Get in touch and we can talk through whether an assessment makes sense for your child’s situation, what it would involve, and what it costs. You can also read more on my Dyslexia page, or look at the British Dyslexia Association’s own guidance, which this article draws on.