Dyslexia: Theory of a Phonological Deficit

Dyslexia; theory of a Phonological deficit

Dyslexia or DRD is described as the difficulty with learning to read fluently despite regular intelligence. This includes struggles with letter awareness, letter decoding, processing speed, short-term memory, language skills/verbal understanding, and rapid naming (Silverman, L. (2000). Dyslexia is a very common learning difficulty and a highly recognized reading disorder. According to Castles, A. 2014; there are two types of dyslexia: “Acquired dyslexia which is a reading impairment in someone who learned to read normally but then lost that ability after brain damage. Developmental dyslexia is reading impairment in someone (often a child) who never learned to read normally in the first place”. I will be focusing on developmental dyslexia.

Back in 1897 Shaywitz. S wrote about a teenage boy called Percy F, who was easily the intellectual equal of his classmates. However, was at a disadvantage with his poor ability to learn how to read. Like 1897, today most societies associate intellect with the proficiency to read, but the millions of people with dyslexia breakdowns the connection between reading and intelligence (Shaywitz. S, 1996). Scientists are then left with the problem of what are the origins of dyslexia if intellect is not the indicator?

Reading difficulties in such children are established in troubles (extreme) obtaining rudimentary reading skills such as “word identification and phonological decoding” (Harris & Sipay, 1990). Problems such as these have been expected to take place in almost 12% of children aged between 6 and 16 and are usually go specific shortfalls in cognitive abilities such as reading, writing etc (Benton & Pearl, 1978; Harris & Sipay, 1990; Shaywitz, ...

... middle of paper ...

...ia: Review of evidence for a selective visual attentional disorder.

(Valdois, S, et al)

Vellutino, Frank R.; Jack M. Fletcher, Margaret J. Snowling, Donna M. Scanlon, January 2004. "Specific reading disability (dyslexia): what have we learned in the past four decades?". Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry (Blackwell Synergy)

McCrory E. 2001, A neurocognitive investigation of phonological processing in dyslexia. London PhD: University College London.

Vellutino FR. 1989, Dyslexia: research and theory. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press.

Snowling MJ. 1999, Phonemic deficits in developmental dyslexia. Psychol Res.

Daal V, Leij A. 1999, Developmental dyslexia: Related to specific or general deficits? pg 71–104.

Per Henning, U & Egil Tønnessen, F, 2007. "The notion of phonology in dyslexia research: cognitivism - and beyond". Dyslexia (John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)