#95. Is Dyslexia a School-Produced Disorder?
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
-
Neuroplasticity
12 min read
The article argues that brain differences in dyslexia might be effects rather than causes, comparing the brain to muscles that change with exercise. Understanding neuroplasticity—how the brain reorganizes itself through experience—is fundamental to evaluating this causal argument.
-
Whole language
13 min read
The article critiques pressured reading instruction in schools without naming specific pedagogical approaches. Understanding the 'reading wars' between whole language and phonics-based instruction provides crucial context for debates about how children learn to read and why some struggle.
Dear friends,
If you Google “causes of dyslexia” you will find countless claims that the cause is a cognitive deficit resulting from a genetically determined difference in the brain. But if you try to track down the nature of the cognitive deficit, or the precise brain difference involved, you will find many mutually contradictory and poorly supported claims. One review of the research a few years ago concluded there is no good evidence for localized brain differences associated with dyslexia or any of the so-called specific learning disorders, and that “all the estimates [from brain studies] are weak and noisy” (see also here). Concerning the cognitive deficit, a common claim is that the core problem lies in the ability to perceive the difference among basic language sounds, or to keep track of the sequence of such sounds. But this, too, receives at best mixed support (here and here).
Moreover, even if consistent correlations were found between dyslexia and particular brain or cognitive characteristics, that would not be proof that the latter are cause of the former. The causation could be the other way around. The brain is like the muscular system in that its anatomy and capacities vary with exercise. It is quite likely that reading changes the brain in certain ways and leads to enhancement of certain perceptual and cognitive processes.
All in all, the view that dyslexia is caused by a genetically determined brain and cognition difference from typical is little more than a guess, but it is regularly stated, by people who should know better, as if it were a fact. In practice, diagnosis of dyslexia is never made by examining the brain and rarely made by testing for basic cognitive abilities. The kids who get the label, following the official diagnostic guidelines, are those of normal or above normal intelligence who, for whatever reason, have not learned to read despite attendance at reading courses in school (Benson et al, 2020). The implicit assumption is that if you haven’t learned to read despite the school’s efforts to teach you, there must be something wrong with your brain, not the school.
I wish here to propose an alternative theory of the origin of dyslexia. I suggest dyslexia is largely an emotional problem brought on by the pressured, anxiety-inducing nature of standard reading instruction in schools. Here is some of the evidence.
Observations
...This excerpt is provided for preview purposes. Full article content is available on the original publication.