Dyslexia

Dyslexia is a neurological disorder with biochemical and genetic markers. In its most common and apparent form, it is a disability in which a person's reading and/or writing ability is significantly lower than that which would be predicted by his or her general level of intelligence. However, as has been discovered only in the last decade, individuals may read and write perfectly and still have dyslexia (see "characteristics" below).

Facts and statistics

Between five and 15 percent of the population can be diagnosed as suffering from various degrees of dyslexia. As previously mentioned, dyslexia can be substantially compensated for with proper therapy, training and equipment.

Related Topics:
Population - Diagnose

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Most researchers agree that there is a fairly even gender balance amongst dyslexics, and that the fact that it is reported more in males is because of selection factors and bias.

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Dyslexia's main manifestation is a difficulty in developing reading skills in elementary school children. Those difficulties result from reduced ability to associate visual symbols with verbal sounds. While motivational factors must also be reviewed in assessing poor performance, dyslexia is considered to be an inborn trait and rarely arises from environmental factors after the brain has matured beyond its especially plastic condition during infancy.

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Some have disagreed with these findings, however, and believe that while dyslexia may sometimes be inborn, it is often attributable to lack of phonics training when learning to read, and also attributed to the preponderance of the whole language system.

Related Topics:
Phonics - Whole language

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Researchers studying the brains of dyslexics have found that during reading tasks, dyslexics show reduced activity in the left inferior parietal cortex.

Related Topics:
Inferior - Parietal cortex

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