British teacher sparks row on dyslexia
A British professor sparked a row on Friday by saying that Dyslexia - a condition that affects millions of people worldwide - was overdiagnosed.
Julian Elliott, professor of education at Durham University in northern England, described Dyslexia as a “construct” that had no scientific basis but had gained wide currency.
“It is hardly surprising that the widespread, yet wholly erroneous, belief that dyslexics are intellectually bright but poor readers would create an impassioned demand to be accorded a dyslexic label,” he wrote in the Times Educational Supplement.
The article, to publicise a documentary on the emotive issue to be aired next week, said there was no proof there was any teaching method more appropriate for children diagnosed as dyslexic than those simply classified as slow readers.
Dyslexia has a very broad definition - ranging from reading to writing and learning difficulties and covering both literacy and numeracy.
Dyslexia Definition
Developmental reading disorder, also called dyslexia, is a reading disability resulting from the inability to process graphic symbols.
Causes, incidence, and risk factors
Between 2 and 8% of elementary-age children have some degree of reading disability. Developmental reading disorder (DRD) is not caused by vision problems, but rather is a problem involving higher cortical (brain) processing of symbols. Children with DRD may have trouble rhyming and separating the sounds in spoken words. These abilities appear to be critical in the process of learning to read.
A child’s initial reading skills are based on word recognition, which involves being able to separate out the sounds in words and associate them with letters and groups of letters. More developed reading skills require the linking of words into a coherent sentence. Because DRD children have difficulty connecting the sounds of language to the letters of words, they may consequently have difficulty understanding sentences.
Most children with DRD have normal intelligence, and many have above-average intelligence. The disorder is a specific information processing problem that is not connected with the ability to think or comprehend complex ideas.
DRD may appear in combination with developmental writing disorder and developmental arithmetic disorder. All of these processes involve the manipulation of symbols to convey information. These conditions may appear singly or in any combination.
Other causes of learning disability and, in particular, reading disability, must be ruled out before a diagnosis of DRD can be made. Cultural and educational shortfalls, emotional problems, mental retardation, and diseases of the brain (for example AIDS) can all cause learning disabilities.
Experts say four percent of people suffer from a severe form of the condition, with another six percent have a mild form of the condition - making it quite hard to pinpoint at times.
Dyslexia specialists rejected Elliot’s claims as baseless and potentially damaging.
“Dyslexia is an internationally recognised illness. It affects all races, all religions and, importantly, all ability levels - not just the intelligent as he suggests,” Laura Sercombe of the Dyslexic Institute told Reuters.
“For people who come to us seeking help, the first step on the road to recovery is the recognition that they are dyslexic. Somebody like this can actually do a lot of damage to their self confidence. We don’t need people like this,” she said.
Symptoms can include problems with short-term memory, mathematics, concentration, personal organisation and sequencing. School children diagnosed with dyslexia are given more time in exams.
The Dyslexia Institute’s Web site http://www.dyslexia-inst.org.uk said the condition is biological and tends to run in families.
“We have been working with sufferers for the past 30 years. Yet parts of this article seem to suggest the condition does not even exist - and that is just plain wrong,” Sercombe said.
Revision date: July 8, 2011
Last revised: by Andrew G. Epstein, M.D.