01 NRDC Dyslexia 1-88 update - Texthelp

Developmental dyslexia in adults: a research review 87
research does not directly address this question, but it is unlikely that ‘treatment-resisters’ are
a homogeneous group; for this reason, perhaps, the illusion of homogeneity should not be
created by including them in the same classification. The best guidance for tutors might then be
expected to come not from group studies but from a range of well-designed single-case studies,
which might address various kinds of attentional difficulty and difficulties in drawing inferences.
These studies have yet to be undertaken.
General conclusions
For the writer as well as for the reader, this has been a long and arduous review. It could easily
have been more so. The scientific literature on reading and reading difficulties is vast and
complex; the non-scientific literature is also extensive and highly problematic in its own way. When
scientists of international distinction describe the situation in terms like those quoted in the
opening paragraphs, they are not being alarmist. Although this review has tried to clarify the
points at issue, the writer is painfully conscious of the loose ends and inconsistencies that remain;
complexity can be simplified, but chaos remains chaos.
Among members of the general public, there are several myths and misconceptions about
dyslexia—namely that dyslexics are brighter than ordinary people, that they are especially gifted,
that they are especially anti-social, that there is at least ‘one in every classroom’ and that,
although there is ‘a gene for dyslexia’, its adverse effects can be dispelled by a course of literacy
teaching which addresses their needs. Scientific support for these beliefs is lacking. But even
systematic researchers can only stumble towards the truth. In what we thought we knew about
dyslexia a generation ago, we now seem to have been largely mistaken. Month by month, new
research findings make it necessary for us to update and perhaps modify our understanding of
reading and reading difficulties. We are all revisionists now.
The most urgent topic for revision is the concept of dyslexia itself, not least because it has in effect
been commandeered in order to invest unsuccessful learners with responsibility for the
shortcomings of their teachers. Worse even than that, it has led to an assumption that the skills
essential for mainstream teaching are needed only by remedial specialists—an assumption which
is guaranteed to put greater numbers of learners at risk.
Every method of reading instruction appears to succeed with some learners (although success
occurs with some methods only when the poverty of the stimulus is compensated by the ingenuity
of the response). All methods fail with some learners (and possibly with some teachers, too). The
lowest failure rate is achieved with systematic and explicit instruction in the alphabetic principle.
However, even with this method, a few learners experience intractable difficulty. These are the
learners whom it is appropriate to call ‘dyslexic’. It is not appropriate to think of them as the
casualties of system failure. At the time of writing, they may find it more liberating to use
alternative strategies than to persist in a struggle for literacy that can end only in a further
experience of failure.
However, describing all these learners as ‘dyslexic’ may suggest that they have more in common
than is actually the case. It might also come, in time, to stigmatise them. After the first awareness
campaign, over ten years ago, dyslexics appeared to become the butt of a spate of cruel jokes. We
should not be surprised if the word ‘dyslexic’ eventually goes the way of ‘spastic’ and for much the
same reason. Science and the world of literacy teaching and learning might be no poorer if it did.