As noted, dyslexia is not just a severe reading disorder characterized by reversals. It is a syndrome of many and varied reading and non-reading symptoms such as:

Reading

• Memory instability for letters, words, or numbers.
• A tendency to skip over or scramble letters, words, and sentences.
• A poor, slow, fatiguing reading ability prone to compensatory head tilting, near-far focusing, and finger pointing.
• Reversals of letters such as b and d, words such as saw and was, and numbers such as 6 and 9 or 16 and 61.
• Letter and word blurring, doubling, movement, scrambling, omission, insertion, size change, etc.
• Poor concentration, distractibility, light sensitivity (photophobia), tunnel vision, delayed visual and phonetic processing, etc.

Writing

• Messy, poorly angulated, or drifting handwriting prone to size, spacing, and letter-sequencing errors.

Spelling, Math, Memory, and Grammar

• Memory instability for spelling, grammar, math, names, dates, and lists, or sequences such as the alphabet, the days of the week and months of the year, and directions.

Speech

• Speech disorders such as slurring, stuttering, minor articulation errors, poor word recall, and auditory-input and motor-output speech lags.

Direction

• Right/left and related directional uncertainty.

Time

• Delay in learning to tell time.

Concentration and Activity

• Impaired concentration, distractibility, hyperactivity, or overactivity

Behavior, Temper, or Impulse disturbances.

Balance and Coordination

• Difficulties with balance and coordination functions, i.e., walking, running, skipping, hopping, tying shoelaces, and buttoning buttons.

Psychosomatics

• Difficulties with headaches, nausea, dizziness, vomiting, motion sickness, abdominal complaints, excessive sweating, and bed-wetting.

Self-esteem

• Feeling stupid, ugly, incompetent, brainless.

Phobias and Related Mood and Obsessive/Compulsive Disorders

• Fears of the dark, heights, getting lost, going to school.
• Fear or the avoidance of various balance, coordination, sports, and motion-related activities.
• Mood disturbances.
• Obsessions and compulsions.