Beneath the Surface of Developmental Dyslexia

The progress in understanding of acquired dyslexia was due not to such collections of empirical data, but rather to the fruitful application of detailed information-processing models to reading failure. The new definition of developmental dyslexia as developmental arrest has some important implications. The lack of a clear concept of developmental disorders has not helped the still faintly burning controversy as to whether developmental dyslexia exists, although there are other reasons for the controversy as well. These children were able to acquire a considerable sight-word vocabulary, but, when compared with normal children from the same school who had a similar sight vocabulary, showed a greatly impaired phonetic spelling strategy. Relevant to this question is the often-quoted absence of classic developmental dyslexia in Japan. The frequent failure to find evidence for a large variety of subtypes in developmental dyslexia cannot be ignored and constitutes a glaring difference to studies in acquired dyslexia.