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Educational psychology - Notes on dyslexia
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Dyslexia (Notes)1. What is dyslexia?
- Reading difficulties need to be seen in context: and writing were recent human
inventions, not a developmental skill. Developmental issues can be constraints,
nonetheless. There had been no change in the number of adults who are unable to
read at a functional level from 1994 to 2012 (20%). 2016: OECD showed that 22% of
16-19 yo had poor literacy.
MANY DEFINITIONS IN THE LAST DECADES.
- Critchley & Critchley 1978 (classic, out of date perspective): Dyslexia is a
disorder manifested by difficulty in learning to read despite conventional instruction,
adequate intelligence and sociocultural opportunity. It depends on fundamental
cognitive disabilities which are frequently of constitutional origin.
- The other end of the spectrum: McGuinness, 1997: ‘a label applied to children
who are so confused by their poor reading instruction that they can’t overcome it
without special help’. ‘nor do so-called dyslexic children have any more trouble
learning to read than other children if they are taught with an appropriate method.’
- British Psychological Society, 1999 (landmark definition at the end of last
century; still referred back to): Dyslexia is evident when accurate and fluent word
reading and/or spelling is learnt very incompletely or with great difficulty. This focuses
on literacy learning at the ‘word level’ and implies that the problem is severe and
persistent despite appropriate learning opportunities.
- Jim Rose, 2009 (national standard def.): Dyslexia is a learning difficulty that
primarily affects the skills involved in accurate and fluent word reading and spelling.
Characteristic features of dyslexia are difficulties in phonological awareness, verbal
memory and verbal processing speed. It occurs across the range of intellectual
abilities. It is best thought of as a continuum, not a distinct category, and there are no
clear cut-off points. Co-occurring difficulties seen in aspects of language, motor co-
ordination, mental calculation, concentration and personal organisation (but these are
NOT by themselves markers of dyslexia). Examining how the individual
, responds/responded to well-founded intervention can indicate the severity &
persistence of dyslexic difficulties.
- Researchers might take different definitions & assessment processes, thus it is
important to consider the approach taken in each study. BPS recommends
assessment over time through precision teaching etc. Others might use a screening.
2. Issues in Identification and assessment
- There is evidence against the IQ-achievement discrepancy approach.
- Children with low IQs can have good word reading skills (Siegel, 1992).
- Stuebing et al, 2002: meta-analysis of 46 studies; found large overlaps between poor
readers with/without an IQ achievement discrepancy and negligible to small
differences found on variables closely related to the reading process.
- Stage et al 2003: Poor readers with & without a discrepancy do not differ in their
response ot the intervention
3. Theories about the causes of dyslexia
- Early researchers focused on visual processing problems: congenital word
blindness or strephosymbolia (twisted symbols; one of the initial ideas) linked to
delayed establishment of hemispheric dominance (failure to suppress mirror image
alternatives producing confusions of b & d, sad & was.) Later it was discovered that
it’s more about verbal processes that mediate dyslexia.
- In 1970-80s, careful experimental work showed verbal mediation was
implicated in the apparent visual difficulties – substituting a written for a verbal
response could eliminate differences between normally developing readers and
dyslexic readers. (Vellutino 1987)
- Dyslexia as a subtle language difficulty: many key reading skills are language
related. Children who find reading difficult have difficulties with phonemic
segmentation and phonological coding. Children with dyslexia form mental
representations of the sounds of language that are poorly specified or ‘fuzzy’. This
makes it difficult to develop an awareness of the internal sound structure of words
and to learn letter-sound relationships (Snowling, 2000).
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