
The Battle over Dyslexia - oska
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/sep/17/battle-over-dyslexia-warwickshire-staffordshire
======
bjo590
> The method for diagnosing dyslexia, known as the discrepancy model, was
> relatively straightforward: test a child’s IQ and their reading age, and if
> there was a discrepancy between the two – average-to-high IQ, low literacy –
> that child was dyslexic. Elliott felt unsure about these assessments. The
> children he tested for dyslexia all struggled to read and write – that much
> was clear – but their literacy difficulties manifested in different ways.

I'm a dyslexic, and I was given extra attention is school that significantly
helped me. I have a pet theory, and this article seems to agree with it to
some extent, that there are several or many different neurological conditions
that are often put in the same label 'dyslexia'. I hope that one day more
research is done to separate out the different underlying neurological states
so we can better teach all children to read. The article's conclusion -- that
because dyslexia is an inprecise term we should abandoned it to an even less
precise term -- is flawed. We should instead work towards creating more
precise language and understanding around the different ways low literacy
manifests in children.

If I was an incredibly wealthy technocrat this would be a pet research field
of mine. If we can improve childhood literacy education it will have massive
returns on that person's lifetime contribution to society. Understanding how
the brain processes language also has significant implications for other lines
of research as well.

~~~
bluGill
We do have a term: slow to learn to read. We don't need dyslexia or some more
specific term unless those terms can be used for better treatment. In this
case dyslexia is too specific: kids who don't fit the definition are being
actively harmed because the treatment would help them just as much as it fit
those who it helps.

It may well be dyslexia (or a more specific term) may mean some other
treatment can be helpful only for those who have it, and not for the general
population of poor readers. This hasn't been suggested (to my knowledge), but
it is possible.

Though I will note that the definition of Autism has gotten broader over time
as treatments have been discovered to help kids who didn't fit the previous
definition.

~~~
bjo590
> We do have a term: slow to learn to read.

There are dozens of reasons a child can be slow to learn how to read. They
could have not have access to education. They could has poor eye sight. They
could be malnourished. They could have difficulties learning in general.
Dyslexia means "Slow to learn how to read, despite no obvious influencing
factors." It's a bit of a catch-all. There might be treatments for dyslexic
children that also help other children learn how to read, but it's likely that
non-dyslexic children will need treatments that will not apply to dyslexic
children.

Dyslexia has more than 3 million cases in the US every year. It's common. When
given the right treatments their quality of life can be improved greatly. I do
not want to remove the classification of dyslexic, because it might jeopardize
the way those children receive treatment.

EDIT: "Dyslexia has more than 3 million cases in the US every year." You can
see the dyslexia in my writing style right there....

~~~
Someone
_“Dyslexia has more than 3 million cases in the US every year.”_

If interpreted as “3 million _new_ cases every year, and dyslexia being
incurable, with a life expectancy of 70 years, that would mean way over half
the population of the USA would be dyslexic.

I seriously doubt that. So, what do you mean by “every year”?

~~~
bjo590
I typed "dyslexia" into Google, and on the side bar overview it says "More
than 3 million US cases per year"

Edit: I dug a little deeper. It's 5-15% of the population.
[http://www.ldonline.org/article/10784/](http://www.ldonline.org/article/10784/)

------
MivLives
As someone who was diagnosed with dyslexia, and went to a special school
because of it, a lot of things in this article brought back memories.

I'm unsure how others are taught to read or spell, but the school I went to
used an almost extended alphabet. Where combinations of english letters like
CH were taught as if they were the roots of spelling.

It did seem to work I went from three grades under my reading level to three
grades over in one year.

Effects linger on, the feeling of wanting to use a word I can't spell,
unintentionally mispronouncing words, and the inability to understand a word
from spoken letters("L-I-K-E-T-H-I-S") are all things I deal with.

I was lucky to be born when I was, as computers entered the picture while in
middle school. Spell check, text to speech, and text based communication via
IM all contributed to getting my writing skills to their current level. The
removal of stress from having to spell freed mental capacity for me to just
worry about the actual content instead.

~~~
gonzo41
I'm dyslexic and my learning to read happened in a burst from ages 11 to 13. I
got a lot of extra attention at school which was mostly around drilling
phonics, like shhh sounds with ti, si, ci. And learning strategies on
decomposing words.

One one of the really impactful things I did that contributed to large
improvements in my reading and spelling was working on a computer based
system. It had you type words that you watched change color on screen whilst
TTS spoke the word back to you. This was combining fine motor control, visual
perception and hearing into all into how I was learning. It was a game changer
for me. At the time, mid nineties this would have been pretty cutting edge
software in the education world. I'm not sure what things are like now but I
was thinking about it the other day just how lucky i was with that.

~~~
scotty79
I think a lot of reading difficulties could have been alleviated if teachers
just abandoned prejudice against phonics.

------
blakesterz
"He also believes that the current system entrenches inequality, because
children from poorer backgrounds tend to be less likely to be diagnosed with
dyslexia."

So if I'm taking away what I should from this article, the biggest problem
they have with "dyslexia" is that there's inequality and there's not a good
way to diagnose it? In the end they say anyone struggling with reading should
get extra help, dyslexia or not. I'm sure they experts know better than I do,
but dyslexia seems like SOMETHING more than just having big problems with
reading. Even if it's hard to diagnose and that diagnosis is inconsistent and
expensive (and therefore not fair) it still seems like a useful diagnosis,
especially in school aged kids. My son is taking a second round of tests next
week, so I'm in the middle of this right now. It's been interesting, people
said "expect to fight with the school" and our school has been GREAT. I guess
we got lucky.

It closes with this:

"Back in 1976, Bill Yule wrapped up his Isle of Wight research with the
following observation: “The era of applying the label ‘dyslexic’ is rapidly
drawing to a close"

(thank you for posting this, oska, it's perfect timing for me)

~~~
buddhiajuke
I’m paid to manage a penguin farm.

Weak penguins need additional feeding. Thin penguins are just thin.

But there’s no objective criteria to tell weak from thin. And I have a budget.

Now, my penguins happen to have _owners_. But they don’t pay for their
penguin, they pay into the penguin system.

~~~
worik
That is extremely cool. Poetry.

What does it mean?

------
coderintherye
I'm surprised Astigmastism is not mentioned:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astigmatism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astigmatism)

Astigmatism is fairly common in the population, results in blurry vision which
impacts reading and thus impacts education. It often also results in
behavioral issues from the frustration caused in kids with blurry vision who
don't know how to express that's the problem.

Anecdotal experience of a couple family members who struggled, once their
Astigmatism was corrected they went on to excel.

~~~
tssva
Testing for vision issues such as astigmatism is usually performed before some
one is proclaimed to be dyslexic.

~~~
slg
Dyslexic here. I don't know how universal it is, but I definitely was
receiving eye tests in school before reading tests which lead to a
misdiagnosis. I was only 6 or 7 so I don't remember if it was specifically
astigmatism or some other eye condition, but I was misdiagnosed as having eye
problems a year before I was finally diagnosed with dyslexia.

~~~
tssva
My daughter has dyslexia and an IEP in place to get her the assistance she
needs. Before the school system would designate her as having a specific
learning disability, a requirement to have an IEP, they required vision,
hearing, reading comprehension and a battery of other reading related testing
to help identify her specific reading deficiency

After she was identified as dyslexic she began a specialized reading program
targeted at those with dyslexia. Unlike as mentioned in the article it is not
the same reading program they assign to others who are "slow readers". This
has helped her move from 2 years behind in reading to now being ahead of grade
in reading. Unfortunately her spelling although improved is still a mess and
likely will be for life as it is for many with dyslexia.

~~~
slg
I'm glad for your daughter and you. The testings to get a diagnosis can
certainly be complicated and stressful for both the child and parents. However
you are all through the worst of it once you get that diagnosis and your
daughter is caught up or exceeded her peers. And while it is true that she
will be dealing with some of the challenges associated with dyslexia her whole
life, the good news is that modern society has shifted to de-emphasize some of
those issues. Spellcheck, text to speech, and speech to text are near
universal now and are a huge boon to the ongoing life with dyslexia.

------
powersnail
The debate seems to be around whether the word dyslexia should be used, but
the condition --- however named --- exists anyway. The proposed phrase
"struggling with reading comprehension" is no less broad, or actually more
broad, than _dyslexia_, and in my opinion brings no additional value to the
situation.

I've known a person diagnosed with Dyslexia, and he was simultaneously one of
the most well-read, eloquent person I'd known, and the most struggling with
spelling. Even words he had to write daily (being a teacher and all), he
couldn't spell with high accuracy.

If you tell me, he was just "struggling" with spelling, that's no different
than telling me a myopic person is just "struggling" to see, or a person with
a club foot is just "struggling" to walk.

Of course, I don't object that there are difficulties in the diagnosis or even
a precise definition of dyslexia. But, to me, that sounds like we need more
research to understand what's happening. If you want me to believe that the
condition alltogether doesn't exist, I'd like to see some more evidence.

~~~
betterunix2
"the condition --- however named --- exists anyway"

"Even words he had to write daily (being a teacher and all), he couldn't spell
with high accuracy."

It is not clear to me what that "condition" would mean in China, where
"spelling" is not an issue (or at least has a completely different meaning
than it does in English) and where it is relatively common for people to be
able to read characters but fail to remember how to write them. It is also
unclear to me how anyone could have a "condition" in which they struggle to
spell if we did not have arbitrary spelling conventions i.e. if we used a
purely phonetic writing system.

None of this is to say that there is no truly "universal" concept of dyslexia
i.e. a neurological difficulty involving difficulty connecting symbols to
meaning. In fact this article suggests that such a thing does exist and can be
observed across various writing systems:

[https://dyslexiaida.org/the-myths-and-truths-of-
dyslexia/](https://dyslexiaida.org/the-myths-and-truths-of-dyslexia/)

A telling sentence from the conclusion: "It is important to note, however,
that prevalence rate is highly sensitive to the criteria used to define
dyslexia..." I would argue that a "true" medical/psychological condition
should not be so dependent on specific cultural practices like spelling rules.

~~~
powersnail
> It is not clear to me what that "condition" would mean in China

If you said so because I'm Chinese and you wonder what I meant, in this
specific example, I'm talking about a British person writing English. You
know, a good number of people in China also write English all the time. ;)

With regards to Chinese characters, not only do people forget how to write
characters sometimes, but also some people do have problems recognizing mis-
written characters, e.g. a missing stroke, an extra stroke, etc.

> It is also unclear to me how anyone could have a "condition" in which they
> struggle to spell if we did not have arbitrary spelling conventions.

I agree, if hypothetically there is only one way to pronounce words, and only
one way to spell a syllable, this would be less of a problem, as the person
can deduce the correct spelling if memory fails. There are still other
factors, like speed and error rate, that the hypothetical language might not
solve.

Although, I imagine it would be hard to replace the natural languages in human
society at this point.

> I would argue that a "true" medical/psychological condition should not be so
> dependent on specific cultural practices like spelling rules.

If the actual cause of the condition is triggered by a specific cultural
practice, I don't see why the condition cannot be referring to such practice.

It would be similar to how when a condition is caused by occupational
practices, its medical description will refer to the occupational practices.

At this point, we don't have a universal definition dyslexia, and I don't
think that's because the is cultural specific, but simply that we don't know
what's happening. Our recognition of the condition is quite superficial, and
even within a single language, a universal and precise definition has not yet
been contrived.

------
qubex
I was diagnosed with “light dyslexia” as a kid (way back in the late eighties)
and it benefitted me modestly (I was already in a highly selective private
school). I went from the lowest rung of reading ability to the highest in a
matter of months, based on little more than parental campaigning and settling
into the general gait of those whose company I was placed in.

I totally agree with this article’s two claims: that the disease is a mirage
(not even a cluster of issues that provide similar symptoms) and that public
policy needs to be broadly revised to not depend upon hitting some abstract
set of criteria in order to qualify for tailored help that largely assists any
student.

I’ll end my contentious statement by pointing out that a significant bias
exists amongst all those who are providing personal anecdata because they
consider themselves legitimately systemic once the criteria are deemed to have
been fulfilled once by at least one partitioner, but do not retire their
diagnosis if other practitioners disagree.

------
danShumway
I object a tiny bit to the article's assertion that inequality is the
category's fault.

If we got rid of dyslexia as a category, there is still going to have to be
prioritization between different kids based on their relative abilities, there
are still going to need to be tests to determine whether someone is struggling
_enough_ to need free assistance and access to special resources. If you just
get rid of the category but don't address the systemic problems of people
being able to pay for diagnosis, then you haven't solved anything. Because
that category doesn't go away just because it's called something else. The
category is, "who is getting special access to resources, and who is
considered functional enough to leave where they are?"

It's the prioritization and diagnosis that sounds broken, not the word.

What these people should be campaigning for is to expand dyslexia to cover
more kids who don't fit into the tidy, innacurate IQ box, and to set up more
impartial diagnosis methods that aren't as subject to monetary abuse. The
dyslexia critics are quick to point out that they're not trying to get rid of
resources, they're trying to expand access. But the only way that getting rid
of designations would be an equalizer is if it's exactly the scenario that
dyslexic kids/parents are worried about -- that nobody gets resources or
special attention any more; that the category itself stops existing.

If these researchers genuinely do want to help people, then I don't get what
their end goal is -- it sounds like they're just playing pedantic word games.
Just expand access, why is worth worrying about what word people use?

I mean, what should we call the category that describes, "child with a reading
disability that needs special attention and extra government resources from
the limited budget we have?" How about the word that's already widely used
that pretty much everybody already understands? How is it helpful to anyone to
have this fight instead of just expanding the existing category to fit more
people?

------
ggm
I hazard that this is one of those places where everyone is anecdata, and
doing the maths (well.. statistics) underpinning this, is going to be the main
problem for choosing rational paths out. At 5-15% of the population, its got
significant economic consequences. The investment of dollars in education and
child psychology, research, teaching, will pay back. So it should be a no-
brainer, but people are going to get tied up in knots on the anecdata, instead
of the underlying trends.

I also think that like "headache" its a symptom label, not an underlying
causative statement. There are many fake cures of headaches, and some which
work, some of the time, for some specific causes of headaches. If you label it
migraine, it doesn't get any better because again, its a symptom label more
than an actual specific thing much of the time.

Dyslexia not having a single root cause won't admit of a single fix.

I don't doubt reading difficulties exist. I'm a bibliophile, and live
surrounded by books since childhood, but now read almost exclusively my kindle
and my reading behaviours have changed, and not entirely for the better. I
skim read since childhood, and re-read books frequently, discovering new
meaning missed in the previous skims. This has upsides, (the pleasure of re-
reading is enhanced: new things!) and downsides (it infuriates the authors of
detailed, dense writing of substance who need me to read it properly and
recall it to engage with them in work)

Anecdata!

------
scotty79
This way of thinking makes way more sense. A lot of human abilities are quite
independent and lie on a spectrum. IQ correlates with some of them to a
certain degree, but picking one and an arbitrary cutoff line of how much
correlation with IQ is broken, and calling it a specific disorder is a bit
much.

Some people are less able to learn to read and write, some are less able to
recognize people, or remember names or faces, or detect emotions. We should
develop mechanism for them to improve and cope with what they can't improve,
but labelling it an illness doesn't feel right if there are no weird, specific
additional symptoms that might indicate common, specific unnatural source of
their difficulties that might have been a target for specific treatment.

------
C1sc0cat
Article seems to be by a cherry picked outsider to allow the powers that be
dodge their requirement to support neurodiverse students.

Also the article is using decades old definitions of dyslexia as difficulty
reading and an average or high IQ

And the journalist doesn't have a background in disability reporting "Sirin
Kale is a London-based journalist specialising in women's rights, politics,
music, lifestyle, and culture"

Having a non expert waltz in and comment on say the BLM / Institutional Racism
would not be acceptable in 2020.

~~~
sparsely
My impression from the article is that they want all students who struggle to
read to be supported, not just those from wealthy backgrounds

~~~
scotty79
This is rather unlikely result of message that will morph into "dyslexia is
fake" when spread.

~~~
C1sc0cat
Which is the intention no doubt

------
petejames
The case study was interesting. Those diagnosed in England get support from
local government by covering cost of private school at £20k a year. Looking at
the incentives, governments don't want lots of people diagnosed as it costs
them. £20k is a huge amount of money in the UK, top universities (Oxbridge)
cost around £10k a year. I could see why many would not get the support they
need and go undiagnosed.

------
InfiniteRand
I'm surprised the article only mentions in passing the aspect of dyslexia that
I always heard as the defining condition, that letters get easily mixed up or
moved around (I'm no expert, nor dyslexic, although I had some friends in
school who were). Is that the issue for most people with dyslexia or is that
just a pop-culture simplification?

~~~
narwally
It's just a simplification, many people experience dyslexia differently, but
for some people with dyslexia that may be a good way to describe to someone
what they experience. It's not actually a medical diagnosis, though can
achieve the qualifications to test for it, it's a learning disability that
doesn't have a well understood physilogical mechanism behind it.

For me I was slow to learn to read, and was in remedial classes until halfway
through elementary school, but I was eventually able to get it down and am now
a very active reader with an average reading pace. Spelling was the issue that
never went away for me. When I try to spell a word I can remember the general
set of letters it's composed of, but knowing the precise order, or if a word
ends in one or two ls, are things I really struggle with. I'm constantly
having to look up the same words over and over, It just doesn't stick.

My first job was a short term remote developing contract. My coworkers thought
I was foreign for the first few weeks because of my poor spelling in code
comments. It's better when I have access to good spelling or grammar checkers,
but often times I misspell a word so completely that even the software has no
idea what I'm trying to say. I also still mess up you're/your and
their/there/they're all the time. In my head words are auditory not visual, so
I have to put extra effort into resolving homophones.

~~~
auganov
> My first job was a short term remote developing contract. My coworkers
> thought I was foreign for the first few weeks because of my poor spelling in
> code comments. It's better when I have access to good spelling or grammar
> checkers, but often times I misspell a word so completely that even the
> software has no idea what I'm trying to say. I also still mess up
> you're/your and their/there/they're all the time. In my head words are
> auditory not visual, so I have to put extra effort into resolving
> homophones.

I'd actually say these kinds of mistakes are often a good indication of
someone being highly fluent in a language.

Isn't it more natural to write things as they're spoken rather than obey a
bunch of arbitrary rules?

When you learn an initially foreign language you're much more likely to pay
attention to these "rules" as you don't know any better. If you speak the
language well already, you will care much less whether or not your
serialization of speech into writing obeys rules exclusive to that domain.

Don't have any data on this but wouldn't be surprised if "dyslexia" shows up
much less in people's second languages.

~~~
narwally
I actually learned Dutch as an adult, I'm around a B1/B2 level. I did actually
notice my dyslexia at least felt like less of an issue in Dutch. Since I
learned mostly through reading, I learned new words in their written form, and
then had to learn rules for how to translate them into their spoken form.
Pretty much the exact opposite of how you learn your native language. It also
may feel like less of an issue because I don't use it nearly as often as
English, and because it is a second language, so I'm not nearly as hard on
myself for any mistakes I make.

------
elliekelly
I wonder if "dyslexia" is at all related to the way we teach children to read?
This thread[1] from a few months back comes to mind.

[1][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23981447](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23981447)

------
emmelaich
In the 70s, when dyslexia had a jump in 'popularity' (according to google
ngram too), an education psychologist I knew had a curious experience.

There was a television program about this thing called dyslexia. In the
following weeks and months, many parents came to him to announce that their
child had dyslexia and must be treated specially.

I guess this is not actually that curious. In the sense that conditions seem
to be contracted via mass media ... and now social media.

~~~
bluGill
While that exists, it also happens that people are under diagnosed for
somewhat rare conditions. If you don't know you have a condition it cannot be
treated. If you have an explained symptom that your doctor can't explain and
suddenly you find an explanation it is correct to see the doctor who
understands it enough to diagnose you.

Of course the above gives quack a start, once you can explain something with
BS you can spread it for money. I don't have a solution.

------
heimatau
The font Verdana has been the best thing for me. None of the 'dyslexia fonts'
have been desirable. You might need to increase the size a little (depending
on how the UI renders it) but it's very enjoyable to me.

I tend to even switch words when I read my kids because the font isn't normal
to me, as opposed to when I'm on a computer.

------
bob33212
I was never diagnosed, but I was a very slow reader in first grade and my
daughter was exactly the same. The problem is that we read 3 words at a time
when most people only read 1 word at a time. It takes longer to get good at
but once you do you are a faster reader.

------
PeterStuer
What is unclear to me is why these schools have to be private, and why they
have to be expensive?

------
marchammknd
Dyslexia is fake

~~~
C1sc0cat
And you base your statement on what exactly?

~~~
marchammknd
Reality

