Friday, February 19, 2010

Research Reports

I have introduced to you the article about the Australian boy in Japan. The following are further articles I had found two days ago. These research reports confirm my findings.
My question is,“What is the dyslexic association doing about all these research reports?”

An article published in Technology Industry on 31.3.2001
The article says: Although people with the reading and language disorder known as dyslexia exhibit a common disruption of brain activity, their performance on reading tests varies greatly from one country to another, according to a report in the March 16 SCIENCE.
There's a simple reason why individuals with dyslexia read better in certain countries, according to neuroscientist Eraldo Paulesu of the University of Milan Bicocca in Italy and his co-workers. Those who read languages such as Italian--in which specific letter combinations almost always stand for the same sounds--have the advantage over those who read languages with less-consistent spelling rules.
To continue reading click here:

The above article written almost ten years ago confirms my finding and yet the dyslexia associations continue saying that dyslexia is a language learning difficulty and millions are spent on continuing research and nothing much done to solve the learning difficulty.

The following are more articles I found on the internet to support my findings.
An article from 4therapy.com
Dyslexia Poses Bigger Challenge For English Speakers
Findings from a new study appearing in the journal Science shows that the rate of identified dyslexics in Italy is about half the rate found in England and suggests the difference most likely lies in the notable differences in the complexities of the languages of the two countries.
For the article click here :

I believe the proportion of dyslexics in the world would be the same but because they don't have any reading problem in their native language they are not considered dyslexics.

Article from The New York Times –April 10th 2001

Geography of dyslexia exposed

Now, a new study suggests that dyslexia -- or, at least, the seriousness of any given case -- may also be an accident not just of neurology but of geography. Simply put: where a dyslexic is raised, and the language that is spoken there, may play a role in the severity of the disability. English, with its notoriously fickle spelling, may be the most daunting.

Article here:

A dossier by Jeannette Dietz dated 2002

A detailed view of the frightening high numbers shows that the incidence
rates of dyslexia vary largely depending on countries or languages.
Whereas 10 % of children in the USA are dyslexic (Satz et al. 1978 quoted by Klicpera and Gasteiger-Klicpera 1995), there are only 1 % in Japan (Macita 1968 quoted by Witruk 1994). This dossier will explore reasons for this varying incidence by reviewing several cross-linguistic studies on reading acquisition and dyslexia.

Click here :

Again, Japan probably has the same % of dyslexic as any other country but it is not detected as they probably don't learn English. They will not have a problem with Japanese (refer the news report on the Australian boy.)

An article in “Life in Italy dd 11.9.2009

French, English, Spanish and Italian adult dyslexics all did equally poorly in tests that involved short-term memory, whereas Italian/Spanish dyslexics did better in reading tests.
Read here :


In the past couple of decades, scientists have learned a great deal about the neurological causes of dyslexia. But what they hadn't yet explained is why its incidence varies so from country to country--and what that difference means. Last week, Italian, French and British researchers proposed an answer. The variability, they wrote in Science, depends greatly on the complexity of writing systems. The team offered what it described as the first compelling evidence that the disorder has a common neurological basis across linguistic and cultural boundaries.

Read more here:

Article from time.com dd.18.3.2001

In the past couple of decades, scientists have learned a great deal about the neurological causes of dyslexia. But what they hadn't yet explained is why its incidence varies so from country to country--and what that difference means. Last week, Italian, French and British researchers proposed an answer. The variability, they wrote in Science, depends greatly on the complexity of writing systems. The team offered what it described as the first compelling evidence that the disorder has a common neurological basis across linguistic and cultural boundaries.

Read more here :

I hope you are now convinced that dyslexia is not a 'language learning difficulty'.

Please leave your comments. It will be greatly appreciated.


4 comments:

Unknown said...

Super interesting articles. Can't wait to click to all the links.

Heidi

Luqman Michel said...

Thank you Heidi. Reading the articles which are ten or more years old I wonder why nothing further had been done.What a waste of research.

Ken Westmoreland said...

The Life in Italy link doesn't say anything about dylexia - there's another one here http://my.lifeinitaly.com/threads/6986-Dyslexic-adults-don-t-exist-in-Italy-like-in-the-U-S-and-England!

In this article, Uta Frith makes an interesting point

Prof Uta Frith, of University College London, who co-wrote the study, published in the journal Science, agreed that dyslexics would be better off learning to read in Italian than in English but added that spelling reform would only camouflage the problem, not cure it.

Prof Frith said: "Dyslexia has a hidden existence in Italy. Some Italian dyslexics may not be diagnosed and may miss out on care. On the other hand, English acts like a magnifying glass: it is easy to become aware of the problem."

Luqman Michel said...

Thank you for your comment Ken. I believe there are dyslexics all over the world. They simply think and learn in a different way. I have said in my blog that I have certified dyslexics who can read well in Malay and romanized Mandarin which use the same alphabets as does the English language. The question one has to ask is "Why is this so?". I would believe The Dyslexic Association knows this and the reason as to why dyslexics find it difficult to read in English as compared with orthographically consistent languages.However,when money is the prime motive one would not want to divulge such information.

Yes, there are dyslexics in Italy as well but they would be difficult to be discovered as most dyslexics are discovered when they have a problem reading.Dyslexics don't find reading in Italian difficult.