People are often confused about all of the terminology used to describe difficulty learning to read. As clinicians we have found it frustrating to hear from a school system “Well, we just don’t serve children with Dyslexia.” The terms Reading Disorder, Dyslexia, and Specific Learning Disability in Reading can all be used interchangeably to refer to reading problems caused by auditory or visual processing differences in the brain. When individuals struggle to read, this may be caused by difficulties decoding or encoding visual information, deficits in auditory short-term memory or trouble with rapid naming i.e. processing speed. People may have trouble with input, integration, storage or output of language. In other words, you may find that you or your child knows his or her sounds but struggles to blend sounds in order to read words (phonological awareness). Or a person may decode so slowly that drawing meaning from text is nearly impossible (processing speed). Some people may decode a word once and then when the same word appears in the next sentence they may slowly decode the word again instead of recognizing the pattern and reading the word from memory (phonological memory). Others may reverse letters when reading or writing or may reverse words reading or spelling “cat” as “t-a-c” (visual perception). All of these difficulties may be referred to as Dyslexia, Reading Disorder or a Specific Learning Disability in Reading.
Dyslexia is a term that was coined in the 1800’s by medical professionals describing “word blindness” and in our experience, when mentioned in an educational setting, it is frequently dismissed. Reading Disorder is the term used by many psychologists and psychiatrists as it is included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV). Finally, a Specific Learning Disability in Reading is an educational term included on an Individualized Education Plan or IEP. The Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act of 2004 (IDEA) specified that educationally a SLD in Reading would be determined by processing deficits, such as those discussed above, in addition to a lack of Response to reading Intervention (RTI) implemented in schools. So when you are discussing progress in school, know the lingo and use the educational term!
November 16, 2010 10:45am
(c) Helena Huckabee