Can we cure dyslexia?

Abstract

© 2015 Tony Cline, Anthea Gulliford and Susan Birch. All rights reserved. A number of controversies surround the concept of dyslexia. McGuinness (2004, p. 2) writes that: The source of English children's difficulties in learning to read and spell is the English spelling system and the way it is taught. [Cross-cultural] comparisons provide irrefutable evidence that a biological theory of 'dyslexia', a deficit presumed to be a property of the child, is untenable, ruling out the popular 'phonological deficit theory' of . . . English-speaking children have trouble learning to read and spell because of our complex spelling code and because of current teaching methods, not because of aberrant genes. By contrast, Vellutino et al. (2004, p. 25) concluded that, 'results obtained in genetic, neuroanatomical and psycho-physiological studies' support the view that involves 'basic cognitive deficits of biological origin'. More recently, Elliott and Grigorenko (2014) reviewed the 'dyslexia debate' in some detail and argued that, 'The term dyslexia has surely outgrown its conceptual and diagnostic usefulness' (p. 176). What is and what causes it are the first two controversies that will be explored in this chapter. Another controversy relates to what schools and teachers can do to support children who find reading and spelling difficult to learn. Some describe as a lifelong condition, where those who have will need to learn to cope with the long-term effects of their condition (Firth et al., 2013). Others argue that children who have can recover the skills they need for reading and spelling, if they get the right support: 'There is good evidence to show that phonological-based interventions are effective in ameliorating dyslexic difficulties' (Duff and Clarke, 2011, p. 9). In this chapter, we will examine these areas of controversy. First, we investigate definitions of and review the evidence on different theories about the causes of dyslexia. The chapter then explores how reading is taught, how effective interventions have been in helping children learn to read when they have difficulty, and the extent to which can be overcome using the right teaching approaches.