What is Developmental Dyslexia?

Overview

Journal Brain Sci

Publisher MDPI

Date 2018 Feb 7

PMID 29401712

Citations 15

Authors

John Stein

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Until the 1950s, developmental dyslexia was defined as a hereditary visual disability, selectively affecting reading without compromising oral or non-verbal reasoning skills. This changed radically after the development of the phonological theory of dyslexia; this not only ruled out any role for visual processing in its aetiology, but it also cast doubt on the use of discrepancy between reading and reasoning skills as a criterion for diagnosing it. Here I argue that this theory is set at too high a cognitive level to be explanatory; we need to understand the pathophysiological visual and auditory mechanisms that cause children's phonological problems. I discuss how the 'magnocellular theory' attempts to do this in terms of slowed and error prone temporal processing which leads to dyslexics' defective visual and auditory sequencing when attempting to read. I attempt to deal with the criticisms of this theory and show how it leads to a number of successful ways of helping dyslexic children to overcome their reading difficulties.

Citing Articles

The effect of online visual games on visual perception, oculomotor, and balance skills of children with developmental dyslexia during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dalvand H, Chamani N, Rahsepar-Fard K, Khorrami-Nejad M, Dadgar H Int Ophthalmol. 2023; 43(12):5011-5024.

PMID: 37845578 DOI: 10.1007/s10792-023-02904-x.

The ReadFree tool for the identification of poor readers: a validation study based on a machine learning approach in monolingual and minority-language children.

Carioti D, Stucchi N, Toneatto C, Masia M, Del Monte M, Stefanelli S Ann Dyslexia. 2023; 73(3):356-392.

PMID: 37548832 PMC: 10522748. DOI: 10.1007/s11881-023-00287-3.

Macular Anatomy Differs in Dyslexic Subjects.

Garcia-Medina J, Bascunana-Mas N, Sobrado-Calvo P, Gomez-Molina C, Rubio-Velazquez E, De-Paco-Matallana M J Clin Med. 2023; 12(6).

PMID: 36983356 PMC: 10057708. DOI: 10.3390/jcm12062356.

From vision to cognition: potential contributions of cerebral visual impairment to neurodevelopmental disorders.

Chokron S, Dutton G J Neural Transm (Vienna). 2022; 130(3):409-424.

PMID: 36547695 DOI: 10.1007/s00702-022-02572-8.

Context and target recollection for words and pictures in young adults with developmental dyslexia.

Obidzinski M, Nieznanski M Front Psychol. 2022; 13:993384.

PMID: 36544458 PMC: 9760829. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.993384.

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