01 NRDC Dyslexia 1-88 update - Texthelp

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Research Report
read. These are children who satisfy standard exclusionary criteria, which include
factors such as intellectual impairment, gross neurological disorders, severe physical
disabilities, sensory deficits, attentional problems, emotional and social difficulties, poor
motivation, inadequate early language environment, socio-economic disadvantage, poor
school attendance and inadequate or inappropriate school instruction. These factors
would be expected to cause problems in reading and in other areas as well, whereas the
key assumption underlying the concept of dyslexia is that the cause, or triggering
mechanism, for the condition is reasonably specific to the reading task. In actual
practice, however, dyslexia is normally defined as a discrepancy between reading
achievement and intellectual potential as measured by standardised intelligence tests.
Most of the factors mentioned previously are generally ignored (page 179).
It may be possible to define dyslexia as the condition that arises from not being able to
respond appropriately to formal reading instruction, despite access to linguistic and
environmental opportunities, because of an initial weakness in phonological processing
that is due to an executive dysfunction (i.e. a deficit or delay in metacognitive functioning)
and/or a deficiency in the phonological processing module (pages 186–187).
Nicolson, R. I. (1996). ‘Developmental dyslexia: past, present and future’. Dyslexia, 2(3),
190–207.
Dyslexia is not just a difficulty in learning to read (though this is the most important
educational symptom). Dyslexia is present from birth, involves neurophysiological and
neuroanatomical abnormalities and has strong genetic components (page 191).
Stanovich, K. E. (1996). ‘Toward a more inclusive definition of dyslexia’. Dyslexia, 2(3), 154–166.
If we have decided to keep the term ‘dyslexia’ in our conceptual lexicon, then all children
with problems in phonological coding resulting from segmental language problems are
dyslexic (page 161).
Miles, T. R. (1996). Peer review commentary ‘Are dyslexics different? I & II’. Dyslexia, 2, 88–91.
With regard to the issue of definition, I see no point in using the word ‘dyslexia’ at all
unless the concept is basically the same as that advocated by the early pioneers …
Hinshelwood, Hallgren, and Hermann spoke of ‘word blindness’ and Orton of
‘strephosymbolia’ but they were clearly referring to the same concept (page 89) … If one
is interested in specific developmental dyslexia it is important not to tie this concept
definitionally to ‘poor reading’ but to concentrate instead on exploring how the different
manifestations of the syndrome arise and how they interact (page 90).
Note ‘We would defend the use of minimal criteria which only require that a dyslexic be
of average or above-average intelligence and have unexpected reading difficulties which
cannot easily be attributed to problems of perception, emotion, education, etc. That may
be out of line with some historic approaches, but it is very much in line with current
research practice’ (page 4). Ellis, A. W., McDougall, S. J. P. and Monk, A. F. (1997). Are
dyslexics different? III. Of course they are! Dyslexia, 3(1), 2–8.
Farmer, M. E. and Klein, R. M. (1995). ‘The evidence for a temporal processing deficit linked to
dyslexia: a review’. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 2(4), 460–493.