Dyslexia is the most common learning disorder. Here’s why.

Learning disorders can affect a person more than you might imagine. Someone struggling with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), for instance, may struggle with impulsive behaviors such as buying something they don’t need at the grocery store, or they may experience difficulty focusing on a task or following instructions. 
Other common learning disorders include dyscalculia – a disability associated with understanding math and numbers-based information; auditory processing disorder – a disorder that causes difficulty processing sounds; and dysgraphia – a disability that manifests as a person struggles to convert their thoughts onto paper. 
But dyslexia is even more common than those learning disorders and “can significantly impact daily life in various ways, particularly when it comes to learning and social interactions,” says Dr. Jason Nagata, a pediatrician at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in San Francisco.
No matter what’s caused it, dyslexia is a condition that can be diagnosed by a mental health professional and treated and supported through many helpful and proven interventions.
Dyslexia is a brain-based learning disorder “that affects how people process written language, especially when it comes to reading, writing and spelling,” explains Jimmy Noorlander, a licensed clinical social worker based in Utah and co-host of Open Source Entrepreneur – a podcast that helps business leaders work through mental health challenges.
Someone with dyslexia might struggle with things like decoding certain words, matching letters with the sounds they make, reversing or transposing letters or words, remembering what they’ve read or doing math. These and “many everyday tasks,” Noorlander explains, “can feel frustrating and can especially make school or work more challenging.”
Still, people at different life stages may be impacted differently by dyslexia. Common signs of dyslexia during one’s early years, for instance, won’t usually match the signs one might see during secondary school or in adulthood. 
Complicating matters, dyslexia can also affect other mental health challenges. “It is documented that children with dyslexia are more prone to behavioral or emotional conditions, including anxiety and depression,” explains Dr. Saidi Clemente, a developmental and behavioral pediatrician of the Atlantic Health System in New Jersey. One reason for this is that social withdrawal and self-esteem problems “can arise from someone’s inability to perform in comparison to their peers,” she says.
Despite such struggles, Noorlander says that “dyslexia doesn’t impact a person’s intelligence or creativity, and many people with it find ways to adapt and thrive.” And because there are varying degrees of severity associated with dyslexia, some people have adapted to less severe forms so well they don’t realize they even have it. 
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Various degrees of dyslexia are “a lot more common than you might think,” Noorlander explains. Indeed, it’s been shown to impact about 20% of the world’s population, or 1 in 5 people. 
And it’s even more common among people who are already struggling with other learning disorders, affecting some 80% to 90% of them, notes Nagata. 
Because of such factors, dyslexia is recognized as the most common of all learning disabilities. 
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So what’s behind this common but sometimes hard to identify learning disorder? While exact causes are not thoroughly defined, we do know that dyslexia “results from individual differences in the parts of the brain that are involved with reading,” says Nagata. Because of this, environmental factors such as growing up in a household where reading isn’t encouraged or supported can play a role. 
One’s gender factors in as well as research shows that boys are more likely to have reading difficulty than girls. “Infections, toxic exposures and other events that occur during pregnancy can also increase the risk of developing dyslexia by altering fetal brain development,” Nagata says.
But the most universally understood factor is the impact that genetics have. As an example, Clemente notes that dyslexia occurs in up to 68% of identical twins of individuals with dyslexia and up to 50% of individuals “who have a first-degree relative with dyslexia.” 
There’s no need to panic, though, Noorlander notes, “as early diagnosis and support through specialized teaching can make a big difference and help people with dyslexia manage their challenges and succeed in school, work, and life.”
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