Cognitive Load and Dyslexia

Cognitive load refers to the amount of information being processed by your mind at any one time. Cognitive resources are limited- your brain can only handle so much information at once.

Consider learning how to drive as an example. When you’re first learning to drive it takes an incredible amount of focus because your mind has to attend to a lot of different tasks: where the gas pedal is, where the brake is, how to work the blinker, etc. With time and practice, those tasks become automatic- we have to think about a lot less at a time than we did when we first learned. This is called automatization.

Automatization lessens our cognitive load and allows us to attend to more and more complex skills. This happens with reading too. When we first learn to read it’s a slow, arduous process. With most people, this cognitive strain lessens naturally with practice, allowing us to read more and more complicated words, sentences, stories, etc.

There is a lot of analysis that goes on with reading, and skilled readers experience these processes automatically. Some of the decisions that have to be made when first learning to  read include:

• What letters are these?

• What sounds do they make?

• How do the sounds change when combined with these other letters?

• What does the word mean?

• What does the sentence mean?

People who have dyslexia, and especially those who have not received effective and early intervention, experience a much higher cognitive load when reading. That’s because the reading processes are not automatized. The reading tasks either have to be completed manually, or very often, are skipped altogether through guessing.  If this guessing or manual processing is inaccurate then a lot of re-reading has to happen, further increasing the cognitive load of the task, as well as the feelings of frustration.

What makes it worse is that so much of the curriculum relies heavily on reading from grade 3 on. Kids who have dyslexia and have to complete these reading tasks take on a much heavier cognitive load than kids who do not. Because of this, the students with dyslexia often have fewer cognitive resources left to do the analysis that is required of them to fully access the curriculum. 

Not only that, but there are fewer cognitive resources left over to make good decisions and to regulate emotions. Because they’re working on overdrive, they often come home very tired from having to work their brains to the limit. 

It is critical that kids with dyslexia receive proper accommodations at school for these reasons. If they don’t, they are not able to equally attend to the curriculum, and, consequently, are receiving an inferior education compared to their peers. Science-based intervention is also critical to help these students improve their reading and writing skills.

The ideal cognitive condition for learning is to have a medium cognitive load. The task should be challenging, but not overwhelming. Students who have dyslexia and do not receive effective accommodations at school or reading and writing intervention have an overwhelmingly heavy cognitive load while doing reading and writing tasks. They may shut down or give up as a result, act out, and/or internalize their frustrations and experience symptoms such as anxiety, depression, sleep deprivation, and social emotional difficulties.

How to help:

• Outside of the time dedicated to reading and writing intervention, keep reading/spelling practice short. What may seem like a small amount of literacy work to neurotypicals is a lot more to those with dyslexia because of cognitive load.

  
  

• Allow for lots of repetition of skills in order to develop automatization, which will ultimately lead to lower cognitive load in the long term.

  
  

• Ensure accommodations are being properly implemented at school. Unfortunately, this is often a fight. Hire an advocate if necessary and resources allow.

  
  

• Teach kids to self-advocate since it will continue to be important for them to receive accommodations in secondary school, post-secondary, and beyond.