Dyslexia

A Beginner's Guide

Nicola Brunswick

• Publisher: Oneworld Publications
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781780741505
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Neuropsychology
• Index: Psychology

The perfect first port of call for anyone concerned about dyslexia. Winston Churchill, Andy Warhol, Walt Disney, Tom Cruise, Agatha Christie, Pablo Picasso are all famous and successful in their chosen professions. All are dyslexic. Around 5 to 15 per cent of speakers of alphabetic languages (e.g. English, French and Spanish) are dyslexic; around 4 per cent severely so. But what is dyslexia? Are there different types of dyslexia? Is it more likely to occur in boys than in girls? Is there a cure? What resources are available to help dyslexic children and adults? Nicola Brunswick answers these, and other, questions informed by current thinking and cutting-edge research. This title includes chapters on the causes and symptoms of dyslexia, the importance of sound and vision to reading, the incidence and manifestation of dyslexia across alphabetic and non-alphabetic languages, and lists of dedicated dyslexia resources - support associations, websites, and assistive technology.

1

What is dyslexia?

For me the toughest thing about dyslexia was learning to spell it.

George Burns

What do you think unites the following people? Jamie Oliver, Michael Heseltine, Winston Churchill, Cher, Andy Warhol, Walt Disney, Hans Christian Anderson, Tom Cruise, Fred Astaire, Robin Williams, Tommy Hilfiger, John Lennon, Steve Redgrave, Richard Branson, Agatha Christie, Pablo Picasso. They have all achieved considerable success and fame in their chosen professions, true. They are all also, as you’ve probably guessed, dyslexic.

But what does this mean? The term dyslexia comes from the Greek dys – ‘impaired’ – and lexis – ‘word’, and refers to an impairment in the ability to read and spell that is not due to low intelligence or lack of educational opportunity. A number of different types of dyslexia has been identified. One general distinction is between acquired dyslexia and developmental dyslexia. We’ll take a look at developmental dyslexia later in the chapter but start with a brief overview of acquired dyslexia.

Acquired dyslexia

Acquired dyslexia is a reading impairment resulting from brain injury (hence, the disorder is acquired). The most common forms of acquired dyslexia are deep dyslexia, surface dyslexia, and phonological dyslexia.

Deep dyslexia is a severe, but extremely rare, reading disorder where the patient experiences great difficulty reading simple words, such as the, and, so, and abstract words, such as calm. Nouns may be read although they will often be read incorrectly. For example, the word sofa might be read as ‘soft’, dream as ‘sleep’. Made-up, nonsense words such as grik will not be read at all.

Surface dyslexia is a disorder in which patients are able to read regularly spelt real words such as hand and mat, and nonsense words such as wolb, but not irregular words such as pint. Regularly spelt words (or regular words) are pronounced according to the most common letter-sound patterns of the language, so hand is pronounced to rhyme with the similarly spelt words land, stand and bland. Irregularly spelt words (or irregular words) do not conform to common letter-sound patterns, so pint is not pronounced to rhyme with the similarly spelt (but regular) words mint, glint and stint.

Phonological dyslexia is an ability to read regular and irregular real words but an inability to read nonsense words. The term phonological refers to the speech sounds within language. A patient with phonological dyslexia, whose ability to appreciate the sound of language is impaired, is unable to convert the written letters of nonsense words (e.g. filstromp) into the sounds that they represent, so these words are not read.

Chapters 2 and 6 explore some of the explanations for these reading impairments. When the term dyslexia is used on its own, however, as in the title and contents of this book, it invariably refers not to acquired dyslexia but to developmental dyslexia.

Developmental dyslexia

Developmental dyslexia is an impairment in the development of skilled reading and spelling. Although there is no single, universally accepted, definition of developmental dyslexia, the many definitions that have been proposed generally describe its symptoms and hint at its possible cause; some also suggest ways in which its symptoms might be managed.

In one of the most widely cited definitions, the World Federation of Neurology (1968) suggests that developmental dyslexia is:

a disorder manifested by difficulty in learning to read despite conventional instruction, adequate intelligence and socio-cultural opportunity. It is dependent upon fundamental cognitive disabilities which are frequently of constitutional origin.

Unfortunately, this prompts more questions than it answers. What is meant, for example, by ‘conventional instruction’? What is ‘adequate intelligence’? What is ‘socio-cultural opportunity’? Which particular ‘cognitive disabilities’ distinguish a dyslexic reader from a poor reader? Little is revealed about the extent of the difficulties experienced, their possible cause or their effects. This definition suggests that dyslexia can only be identified by exclusion – i.e. people are only dyslexic if their reading difficulties cannot be explained by educational, intellectual or cultural factors. All this actually reveals is that children with reading impairments have unexplained ‘difficulty in learning to read’.

The International Dyslexia Association (2002) has suggested a more advanced definition:

Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurological in origin. It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language that is often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction. Secondary consequences may include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experience that can impede growth of vocabulary and background knowledge.

But again, this definition does not explain what dyslexia is or what causes it. For example, what is meant by the phrase ‘neurological in origin’? What are these poor ‘decoding abilities’? What is the ‘phonological component of language’? And what is ‘effective’ classroom instruction?

In an attempt to provide a clear and accessible description of dyslexia, the British Dyslexia Association (2007) has offered the following definition:

Dyslexia is a specific learning difficulty which mainly affects the development of literacy and language related skills. It is likely to be present at birth and to be lifelong in its effects. It is characterised by difficulties with phonological processing, rapid naming, working memory, processing speed, and the automatic development of skills that may not match up to an individual’s other cognitive abilities. It tends to be resistant to conventional teaching methods, but its effects can be mitigated by appropriately specific intervention, including the application of information technology and supportive counselling.

Although this definition is not without its problems either – for example, if dyslexia ‘mainly affects’ language and literacy skills, what else does it also affect? If it is only ‘likely to be present at birth’, is this not always the case? If it is not present at birth, then what causes it to develop later in life? What is an ‘appropriately specific intervention’?

Laying these problems aside, these last two definitions together offer more objective criteria for the identification of dyslexia. They identify it as a collection of reading, spelling, naming, and memory impairments caused by problems with perceiving and manipulating the sounds of language, and with associating written letters with their spoken representations. Written letters that represent individual spoken sounds are called graphemes. The spoken sounds that these graphemes represent are called phonemes. So, converting written letters (e.g. b or eigh) into their corresponding sounds (‘buh’ and ‘ay’) is known as grapheme-phoneme conversion. Difficulties with phonological processing and grapheme-phoneme conversion lie at the heart of dyslexia.

Poor phonological processing skills and poor grapheme-phoneme conversion ability make dyslexic readers less able than non-dyslexic readers to:

• read words by breaking them down into their component letters, converting these letters into their spoken sounds and blending these sounds together into a single word;

• spell words by breaking spoken words down into their component sounds, converting these sounds into individual written letters or strings of letters and writing these letters as a single word;

• hold verbal information in short-term memory;

• learn sequences of things – e.g. months of the year or times tables;

• recognise and produce rhymes;

• read words by breaking them down into their component letters, converting these letters into their spoken sounds and blending these sounds together into a single word;

• spell words by breaking spoken words down into their component sounds, converting these sounds into individual written letters or strings of letters and writing these letters as a single word;

• hold verbal information in short-term memory;

• learn sequences of things – e.g. months of the year or times tables;

• recognise and produce rhymes;

• recognise the same sound in groups of words, such as sun, sea and sand;

• name objects, colours, or numbers quickly and accurately;

• pronounce long words – e.g. perpendicular.

recognise the same sound in groups of words, such as sun, sea and sand;

• name objects, colours, or numbers quickly and accurately;

• pronounce long words – e.g. perpendicular.

Together, these difficulties impair the development of reading and spelling accuracy, they reduce reading comprehension ability, limit vocabulary, and hinder verbal communication.

Signs and symptoms of dyslexia

The specific signs and symptoms of dyslexia are extremely variable and depend on the person’s age, sex, family background, educational experience, level of intelligence, and whether they also have other developmental problems. That said, the presence of a large number of symptoms should persuade individuals, parents, teachers, and psychologists to be on the lookout for dyslexia. Bear in mind, however, that not all dyslexic readers will display all of the symptoms, and where symptoms are seen, they will not necessarily be displayed to the same degree. Some symptoms, of course, may also be seen in people who are not dyslexic.

Despite this variability, you might expect to see clusters of particular signs and symptoms of dyslexia at specific stages of development. Some of the more typical ones are listed over the next few pages.

Early signs of dyslexia in pre-school children

• delayed speech development, i.e. not speaking by the age of two to three years;

• persistent difficulties with the pronunciation of multi-syllabic words, e.g. animal might be pronounced as ‘aminal’, hospital as ‘hopital’;

• difficulty learning nurs...