01 NRDC Dyslexia 1-88 update - Texthelp

Developmental dyslexia in adults: a research review 145
Morgan, W. P. (1896). ‘A case of congenital word-blindness’. British Medical Journal (7
November 1896), 1378.
Percy’s visual memory for words is defective or absent; which is equivalent to saying that
he is what Kussmaul has termed ‘word blind’ … This case is evidently congenital, and
due most probably to defective development of that region of the brain, disease of which
in adults produces practically the same symptoms—that is, the left angular gyrus.
Note ‘This explanation assumed (a) that functions are localised similarly in the brain in
both adults and children, (b) that such localisations are innate (although it is certainly
peculiar to hypothesise an innate brain mechanism for reading, which is a cultural
artefact) and (c) that there is little developmental plasticity available to compensate for
an early localised lesion. Subsequent work … has shown that these assumptions are
clearly wrong for spoken language and it is doubtful that they hold for written language’
(page 639). Pennington, B. F. (1999). Toward an integrated understanding of dyslexia:
genetic, neurological and cognitive mechanisms. Development and Psychopathology,
11, 629–654.
Note ‘The functional neuroanatomy of reading disorders in children is still enigmatic
and, for the most part, as speculative as it was a century ago’ (page 214). Cossu, G.
(1999). Biological constraints on literacy acquisition. Reading and Writing: An
Interdisciplinary Journal, 11, 213–237.
Hinshelwood, J. (1895). Word-blindness and visual memory. The Lancet (21 December 1895),
1564–1570.
There are different forms of word-blindness which must be carefully distinguished from
one another. The case just reported is really one of letter-blindness—i.e. the inability to
recognise individual letters (page 1565) … A lesion on one side of the brain, in the vast
majority of cases on the left side, may completely obliterate the visual word memories
and make the individual word-blind (page 1568).
Crossword definition
1 Across in Quick Crossword 10,155 (The Guardian, 20 November 2002).
Dyslexia (4–9)
The answer is, of course,
W
O
R
D
B
L
I
N
D
N
E
S
S
Official definitions
Department of Education and Science (1975). A Language for Life: Report of the Committee of
Enquiry appointed by the Secretary of State for Education under the Chairmanship of Sir Alan
Bullock. London: HMSO.
‘ … not susceptible to precise operational definition’ (page 587)