New research article on dyslexia

[Laurie4b]

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-12/yu-ddn121709.php

Nothing too earth-shattering here, but I like to read new research and thought I'd share.

Basically says that over time, in normal readers, reading ability and IQ are correlated and influence each other; in dyslexics, the two abilities stay separate.

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[NCW]

Thank you for posting this. In her book Overcoming Dyslexia she advocates specific reading instruction to rewire brain pathways, so it's very interesting that her longitudinal study suggests that the diagnosis of dyslexia sticks with you throughout life. Very interesting. I wonder if the full article in Psychological Science will talk about that more? I would also love to learn more about the word retrieval/verbal issue. Perhaps I should go pull her book back off the shelf - it was years ago that I read it! Thanks again.

[merry gardens]

Thank you for posting this. In her book Overcoming Dyslexia she advocates specific reading instruction to rewire brain pathways, so it's very interesting that her longitudinal study suggests that the diagnosis of dyslexia sticks with you throughout life. Very interesting. I wonder if the full article in Psychological Science will talk about that more? I would also love to learn more about the word retrieval/verbal issue. Perhaps I should go pull her book back off the shelf - it was years ago that I read it! Thanks again.Yes, thanks for that link also. :) I wondered about how brain re-wiring and remediation fit in with this study too. I know that many people with dyslexia are very bright and can manage to get by with using other skills to compensate for their reading difficulty. I'm not surprised that their IQ's don't correlate with reading for people with dyslexia. (Think about it--many education professional look at the discrepancy between IQ and reading ability to diagnose dyslexia in the first place!) What's not clear to me from the article if any remediation for reading was attempted.

I am glad that scientists are documenting that dyslexia isn't caused by a lack of intelligence on the part of the person with dyslexia, and I'm glad to read that their IQ's continue to rise even if their reading skills don't improve. Still, I hold out hope that my 8 yo's reading and word processing can improve.

[Rod Everson]

I'm not surprised that their IQ's don't correlate with reading for people with dyslexia. (Think about it--many education professional look at the discrepancy between IQ and reading ability to diagnose dyslexia in the first place!) ....I hold out hope that my 8 yo's reading and word processing can improve.

Actually, education professionals tend not to diagnose dyslexia, considering it a medical issue. Instead, they use a discrepancy between IQ and reading ability to qualify a child for special education services. It's close to the same thing, in that the child probably would be diagnosed dyslexic, but not quite the same. Your main point is valid, i.e., that the study result was pretty obvious.

Research over the past couple of decades has shown that, contrary to previous thinking, IQ can be changed (in either directions, by the way.) Furthermore, one of the best ways to boost IQ is to do a lot of reading. Thus, it makes perfect sense that IQ and reading ability would be strongly correlated in people that are normal readers. More reading makes you a better reader and more reading raises your IQ.

Sorting out the dyslexics from the population of normal readers would make the association even stronger, because as Shaywitz found dyslexics are forced to learn by other modes. And because reading is one of the best ways to build IQ, some dyslexics find other ways to learn but other dyslexics don't, hence a wider range of results uncorrelated with reading ability.

My beef with Shaywitz is that in her entire book, Overcoming Dyslexia, she fails to recognize the existence of vision skills problems in many dyslexics. Given the exposure her book got, she could have saved thousands of people the grief of dealing with dyslexia year after year by at least mentioning the existence of vision therapy and the possibility that it offered benefits to dyslexics.

Daniel Willingham wrote an excellent book on how people learn. That's where I read of the change in IQ thinking over the past two decades. You can read more at Can Intelligence be Changed? (http://ontrackreading.com/the-policy-piece/can-intelligence-be-changed/) on my website. The book reference is there too.

Rod Everson
OnTrack Reading (http://ontrackreading.com)

[HeidiD]

[QUOTE=Rod Everson;1407220]My beef with Shaywitz is that in her entire book, Overcoming Dyslexia, she fails to recognize the existence of vision skills problems in many dyslexics. Given the exposure her book got, she could have saved thousands of people the grief of dealing with dyslexia year after year by at least mentioning the existence of vision therapy and the possibility that it offered benefits to dyslexics.


I agree. It seems that the official definition of dyslexia as a phonological issue alone is too narrow, since the phonological problems and visual problems (whether caused by underlying neurological processing problems or "vision skills") can coexist, and both issues, either separately or together, affect reading ability.

[NCW]

OK, it may be just me and my knee-jerk reaction, but the dyslexia glasses really sound like a scam.

[NCW]

Guess I touched a sore spot. There's no discussion to continue - looks like you're new here, so perhaps you haven't had a chance to read the guidelines for posting. I have, and will bow out now.

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