Talk:Dyslexia

Text regarding Sir Rose report temporarily removed

Hi, there.

A hearty welcome, and my apologies, offered to new wikipedia editor Woosycat. If Woosycat had a personal page, I'd ask for clarification and try to come to consensus there. Since there isn't one, I thought the best route would be to delete the information temporarily so we could perhaps achieve consensus here.

The removed text is as follows:

A recent government funded report by Sir Jim Rose has been issued in June 2009 clarifying how dyslexia is to be defined. {{cite news | first=Michael Rice Dr Michael Rice (University of Cambridge, formerly Senior Research Officer, NRDC Institute of Education) with Greg Brooks Research Director, NRDC Sheffield, and Professor of Education, University of Sheffield | title = Developmental dyslexia in adults: a research review | date=2004-05-01 | publisher=National Research and Development Centre for Adult Literacy and Numeracy | url =http://www.nrdc.org.uk/projects_details.asp?ProjectID=75 | pages =*133-147 | accessdate = 2009-05-13 }}</ref><ref name='University'>{{cite book |last=Brazeau-Ward |first=Louise |title=Dyslexia and the University |publisher=Canadian Dyslexia Centre |year=2001 |location=Canada |pages=1–3 |url=http://www.dyslexiaassociation.ca/english/files/universityanddyslexia.pdf |isbn=1-894964-71-3}}</ref>

The report mentioned seems to have come from the UK. There's nothing wrong with that! But since this particular section is a very prominent one in the article, information we provide here needs to be broad in scope in terms of applicability. For country-specific information, when we refer to "the government", we'd need to specify the UK government, that the report was specifically about adult dyslexia rather than dyslexia across the lifespan, etc etc.

This is very good information, and we could include it in a few different ways. One would be to create context in this section for country-specific information. Another way might be to place the information in another section of the article. There used to be a paragraph in the controversy section that discussed the fact that some people assert that dyslexia does not exist as a disorder. I believe that information was from the UK also. Perhaps these two facts would be good if placed somewhere together?

Thoughts?

Best, and again, a warm welcome to Woosycat ....

Rosmoran (talk) 23:47, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Introduction

I have changed the introduction as well as expanding it. I realized that dyslexia is caused by unknown factors because if someone who suffers from mental retardation but cannot read does this person has dyslexia? No, because it is caused by mental retardation, a known factor. Someone who suffers from dyslexia, there is no known factors. It is all theories but nothing about real causes. If you have any issues with this, please let me know. Esthertaffet (talk) 15:43, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi. I think you made some changes that could be very good, especially your point about dyslexia being diagnosed at all levels of intelligence. By definition, dyslexics have at least average intelligence. I modified the old statement to more closely reflect the statement made by Sally Shaywitz in the cited source. I'm sure we could find another source that would frame the information differently. If you can find one, let's look at modifying the statement.

As for causes, because of functional brain scan technology we actually know much more than ever before about the various etiologies of dyslexia, so it wouldn't be accurate to say that there are no known causes. The bigger problem is that there are so many definitions of dyslexia that it's impossible to narrow down to a limited number of causes.

I have seen a similar statement to the one you added regarding dyslexics having trouble learning to read if left to figure things out for themselves or if taught in conventional ways. This is a very important point, but I can't remember the source of that information. Do you know where it came from? I think if we can cite a source for the information we should include it in the article in some appropriate location.

Best, Rosmoran (talk) 09:55, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

The cause for dyslexia cannot be just a person with dyslexia is wired differently due to using functional brain scan technology. That's not a cause. I'm sure there are people who don't have dyslexia but have similar brain scans with people who have dyslexia. There must be more research on dyslexia in order to formulate the causes of dyslexia. Since "unknown causes" was rejected, what other terms can we use?

"Dyslexia is not an indicative of intelligence level. Rather, people with dyslexia have trouble performing specific types of skills or completing tasks if left to figure things out by themselves or if taught in conventional ways. Dyslexia cannot be cured or fixed; it is a lifelong issue. With the right support and intervention, however, people with dyslexia can succeed in school and go on to successful, often distinguished careers later in life."

I didn't think it required a source. I thought it was just common knowledge. Esthertaffet (talk) 15:10, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Regarding whether the text about dyslexics having trouble learning to read "if left to figure things out for themselves or if taught in conventional ways" is common knowledge: It could certainly be considered common knowledge in the community of dyslexia professionals, but I don't think this can be considered common knowledge in general---for example, I've never met an educator not trained in some orton-gillingham program who has any knowledge of the special instructional requirements of most dyslexics. If they don't know it, the general population certainly won't. The statement itself is very powerful and easy to understand, but it is framed very differently than what we see in most dyslexia literature. This unique-ness is what needs to be cited.

Help me understand what you're trying to say about the "cause" of dyslexia. Perhaps our difference is semantic rather than substantial.

Here's an attempt to clarify where I'm coming from: We know several areas of the brain that often function very differently in dyslexic readers of English than in typical readers of English, two of which are those parts of the brain that process phonological information and the parts that process the orthographic information (the visual squigglies on the page) that is then translated into sounds->words->meaning. The neurological pathways required to process this information the didn't develop normally, so the brain compensates by trying to build alternative pathways, which of course are less efficient.

I would consider this abnormal information processing a "cause" of dyslexia, at least for people trying to read English orthography. On the other hand, one could argue that the actual cause is whatever disrupted the brain development process during which these pathways should have been created.

Does this describe how we are using the word "cause" differently?

Rosmoran (talk) 23:33, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but no one truly knows what disrupted the brain development process. In other words, how come the brain is wired differently for people with dyslexia? There is never a straight answer to why people have dyslexia, other than they are wired differently. Esthertaffet (talk) 15:20, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Let's say someone has Down syndrome. A person with mental retardation has his brain wired differently. The cause for that is because he has Down syndrome. This would explain why it affects the brain's ability to receive and process information. Now let's go back to someone with dyslexia. A person with dyslexia has his brain wired differently. The cause for that is because he has ???. There is no answer. How would this explain what is affecting his brain to receive and process information? Of course there is no cure for dyslexia because there was never a cause to begin with. Esthertaffet (talk) 15:34, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the down syndrome/dyslexia comparison: Someone with Down Syndrome has a brain wiring difference that has been classified and named -- that doesn't say what *caused* the wiring difference. Ditto, someone with OCD has a brain that is wired differently. What caused the different brain wiring? We don't know. (Actually, we know a couple of things that may have caused it, but in most cases there's no way to figure that out yet.) So that argument doesn't hold.

Nevertheless, your original point is that, from your perspective, the "cause" is whatever disrupted the brain development so that the neural pathways are not developed properly, yes?

Rosmoran (talk) 20:45, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Esthertaffet (talk) 21:53, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Great. So, how best to handle this? I just spent some time sampling the Wikipedia articles for a number of neurological disorders, and most of them don't specifically address causes (except things like strokes and brain traumas).

Is this something we want to emphasize in the article? the fact that we don't know specifically what caused the brain wiring to be abnormal?

Rosmoran (talk) 00:13, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

I have found references. The first article said that "nobody quite knows at the moment" and the second article said that it was unknown. With this being said, can we say that dyslexia is caused by "unknown factors"? [1] [2] Esthertaffet (talk) 21:24, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

That wasn't what I was saying needs to be cited. Rather, as I said above, it was the qualifying text "if left to figure things out for themselves or if taught in conventional ways" that needs citation.

I don't think it matters whether the text is worded "unknown cause" or "unknown factors." The dicey bit is the text surrounding those words. The article already says that dyslexia is neurological in origin, so someone would need to craft some wording around "neurological in origin" and "unknown cause."

That said, in my last post I asked the question: "Is this something we want to emphasize in the article? the fact that we don't know specifically what caused the brain wiring to be abnormal?" (The answer may well be "yes.")

Best, Rosmoran (talk) 03:41, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Article should be edited to represent the lack of medical consensus regarding dyslexia from causation to existence —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.150.144.204 (talk) 16:23, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

General idea for a tool

I did not know where else to post, so I just stuck this up here..

• Dyslexia help-application collection —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.91.73.39 (talk) 01:28, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

My PubMed Dyslexia research paper collections

For anyone wish to find supportive research papers when editing the Dyslexia article I have collated some online Research paper collections at PubMed.

• Alexia collection
• Aphasia collection
• Dorsal and Ventral Streams - functional anatomy of language collection
• Dyslexia and Attention collection
• Dyslexia and Auditory Processing collection
• Dyslexia and Cognitive Nuerology, Neurobiology collection
• Dyslexia and Genetic Research collection
• Dyslexia and Morphological Processing collection
• Dyslexia and Orthography collection
• Dyslexia and Phonological Processing collection
• Dyslexia and Remediation collection
• Dyslexia and Speech and Language Impairments collection
• Dyslexia and Visual Processing collection
• Dyslexia and Working Memory collection
• Dyslexia in Logographic (Chinese, Japanese) Orthographies collection
• Learning collection
• Otitis Media collection
• Plasticity collection
• Reading collection

there are probably some 200 plus research papers in these collections

best wishes

dolfrog (talk) 17:52, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

These collections have recently been expanded to include Dyslexia and Cognitive Nuerology, Neurobiology collection by year of publication, and a new series regarding Leading Dyslexia Researchers see User:Dolfrog dolfrog (talk) 04:01, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

dyslexia and background noise media debate

Medical News Today 12/11/09 published an article New Brain Findings On Dyslexic Children and on 13/11/09 they published my reply to the article dolfrog (talk) 05:03, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

origin of the word

I looked this up to find out where the word dyslexia comes from. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.91.100.38 (talk) 18:36, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

What about Strengths of Dyslexia?

How come there is nothing on strengths of Dyslexia?

There are strengths that Dyslexics tend to have like strong ability to visualize,picture things in their mind's eye.

I really believe that it depends on whether the Dyslexia is genetic or not I believe the same with other neurodivergent conditions like Dyspraxia,ADHD,Autistic Spectrum —Preceding unsigned comment added by Satabishara (talk • contribs) 19:02, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

For that to be included, it would need to have a verifiable source - see WP:VERIFYAutarch (talk) 20:16, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

There are no strengths of dyslexia. Dyslexia is the shared symptom of a number of cognitive information processing deficits / disorders, are catagorised by the Cognitive subtypes of dyslexia. Acta Neurobiol Exp (Wars). 2008 The so called strengths are the cognitive compensatory strategies developed to work around the cognitive deficit which causes the dyslexic symptom. dolfrog (talk) 03:56, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

What if the strengths of Dyslexia are actually what is causing the problem in the first.....like strong right hemisphere processing interfering with left hemisphere processing as well as even an ultrasensitivee nature that can be seen as having sensory integration problems.

Why is it a cognitive deficit? Who decides that it's a cognitive deficit? Just because a person's way of thinking,and learning is different doesn't mean that it's a disorder nor deficient. A different mind is not a deficient mind.

There are strengths with Dyspraxia,Autistic Spectrum,Dyscalculia,and Tourette Syndrome. I think that it's more with the genetic types and not the acquired types 69.230.104.229 (talk) 10:13, 17 April 2010 (UTC)Satabishara69.230.104.229 (talk) 10:13, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I think you need to read some of the research regarding dyslexia, and the related issues. Dyspraxia is about having motor cognitive problems, which is why it is also known as Dyspraxia - Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) in the majority of research papers regarding the condition The Autistic Spectrum is a wide range of issues which are cause by multiple cognitive disorders, which can cause a spectrum of information processing problems. Dyscalculia is about having problems processing numeric information

All of the above are the result of developmental cognitive deficits / disorders many of which have an initial genetic cause. Dyslexia is not a condition, but a shared symptom of many sometimes co-morbid cognitive conditions such as Auditory Processing Disorder, Visual Process Disorder (which are cognitive sensory information processing disorders) ADHD etc. Most are born with these cognitive deficits / disorders, and from birth subconsciously begin to develop compensating cognitive skills to work around their cognitive deficits. It is these compensating cognitive skills or coping strategies which you are calling "strengths". These compensating cognitive skills are not usually developed by others who do not have a cognitive deficit / disorder, and this is why dyslexics and others have to thinking differently to try and cope with their cognitive deficits.

These same cognitive problems can be acquired via an accident, severe brain injury, stroke, dementia, etc. But this does not usually happen during early development, when we are most able to subconsciously develop compensating cognitive skills. dolfrog (talk) 17:48, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Reorganized

I have reorganized the text here as per WP:MEDMOS and the requested tag. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:27, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Controversy section

This section is based on one paper, Elliot and Gibbs (2008), and currently nothing else. That one paper is in a philopophy of education journal, not a scientific journal. It seems to me this needs to be cleaned up or dumped. Thoughts? Dbrodbeck (talk) 11:54, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Dyslexia is an educational diagnosis, not a clinical diagnosis. There are neurological clinically diagnosed disabilities or disorders which have dyslexia as a symptom. International dyslexia research over the last decade or so has been investigating the various factors which can cause dyslexia, such as the auditory, visual, and attentional cognitive factors which can cause the dyslexic problems. The "Contoversy" is the challenge being made to the concept that dyslexia is condition or disorder with a single neurological cause, which has been the claim made or the educational philosophy used by those advocating the existance of dyslexia in the English speaking world, especially in the USA and the UK. The advocates in the USA and the UK claim scientific research supports their notion that dyslexia has a single neurological cause, which would be feasable using the technology etc of the 1970s and 1980s, when these concepts of dyslexia were created, as were the remedial programs which these advocates use or sell to those who have dyslexia. So this paper questions this 1970s / 1980s educational philosophy (which has been adopted by the respective governments) and questions the diagnostic process, which is currently based on the scientific research of the 1970s / 1980s, and ignores the international dyslexia research of the last decade or more. The content of this article tries to reflect the current international research which is focused on identifying dyslexia and its neurological causes, while at the same time trying to define the working in everyday life being done to help remediate information processing and learning problems experienced by dyslexics, much of which is not in line with cutting edge research. I think i have i have covered most of the issues of this very complex set of issues dolfrog (talk) 12:47, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

I am not sure what an 'educational diagnosis' is. Dyslexia is covered by the ICD 10, for example. Do we not have to follow WP:MEDRS here? Would the paper in question meet that standard? Dbrodbeck (talk) 14:35, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

What is ICD 10 Prof Elliot refers to the situation in the UK dolfrog (talk) 14:48, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

dyslexia is an educational diagnosis using educational measures (measuring reading speeds etc) as opposed to a medical or clinical diagnosis using medical diagnostic tests dolfrog (talk) 14:51, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

as an example Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) is neurological condition regarding how the brain processes all sound heard by the ears, including speech. Dyslexia is about having problems with the visual notation of speech. So those who have APD will have problems processing speech sound information, and they will also have problems processing any notation of speech sound information. dolfrog (talk) 14:58, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Click the link in the infobox on the page that says ICD to find out about it. Many psychological/neurological/developmental disorders are diagnosed with behavioural measures. Dbrodbeck (talk) 15:01, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

ICD 10 dates back to 1992 which is can only be based on the research science of 20 years ago. Research has moved on significantly since then and a great deal more is now known about the underlying causes of dyslexia since then, and some researchers are discussing Biomarkers for the underlying causes of dyslexia, but not for dyslexia itself. I also noticed that ICD 11 is due anytime, which may include more recent research regarding dyslexia and the underlying neurological or clinical causes. Prof Elliot is saying that Dyslexia does not exist, but the clinical underlying causes do. And Dyslexia is a man made problem, man created the various writing systems as a visual communication system, and some who have various cognitive deficits or disorders will have difficult accessing this man made communication system, depending on the cognitive skill sets required to decode the symbols, which varies between the different writing systems, and the languages within each writing system. For example it is possible to be dyslexic in one language of one writing system and not dyslexic in a langauge from a different writing system. It is all down to the orthography of the language being used. dolfrog (talk) 15:20, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

have a look at Cognitive subtypes of dyslexia 2008Acta Neurobiol Exp (Wars). 2008;68(1):73-82..

diagnosis

Even if this varies by country (which I know it does), why is there nothing on who diagnoses dyslexia and how this is achieved? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.119.248.25 (talk) 02:24, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Dyslexia is about having problems with a man made communication system, the visual notation of speech, which varies according the the writing system being used, and the orthographic variations of each language within each writing system. Dyslexia is not a medical or clinical diagnosis, as there are no internationally recognised biomarkers to identify the existence of dyslexia. Each country has their own form of educationally based diagnostic tests and each country defines the specific professions that can diagnose dyslexia. International research has indicated that the way forward is to identify the underlying cognitive / medical causes of the dyslexic symptom, such a auditory processing , visual processing, and attention. These three cognitive measures can be clinically diagnosed, and can individually or in any combination cause the dyslexic symptom. dolfrog (talk) 09:40, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Dehaene's book Reading in the Brain will help greatly with improvement of this article.

It would be a really good idea for several Wikipedians to have Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention by Stanislas Dehaene at hand as they continue to edit this interesting article. The book is recent, very well researched, and very clear on the neurology of different forms of dyslexia. It also has an excellent cross-cultural perspective on writing systems and dyslexia.

-- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 17:46, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

The real problem with this type of book is that it is not peer reviewed and may be slanted towards a prospective market, if you could source some peer reviewed research papers by the same author which are accessible online than that would be greatly appreciated. dolfrog (talk) 18:35, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Having read the reviews of the book, there would appear to be an unbalanced perspective of scientific research slanted to a range of teaching and intervention programs, based on alphabetic languages, and ignoring the need for both lexical and sub-lexical processing as part of the reading process. dolfrog (talk) 18:57, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Reading the actual book rather than reviews will allay your concerns about the book. It has a much broader perspective than that, is very much based on peer-reviewed research published in professional journals (lavishly cited in the book), and is based on considerable clinical experience with dyslexic persons. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 19:04, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Follow-up question: which reviews did you read of the book in the twenty-two minutes after I posted the citation? I learned about the book originally from favorable reviews posted in places where I consistently find recommendations of good books. I happen to have read a lot of the primary research literature that Dehaene cites, and he cites and summarizes that research accurately and even-handedly. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 20:13, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

from your edits so far this you have little understanding of the various writing systems, and lack an internation understanding of the visual notion of speech, which is waht text is. Again provide some international peer reviewed research papers, from you contributions so far Dehaene is no authority on reading or dyslexia, or if he is then he is just one among many who have their point of view to promote the sales of their book dolfrog (talk) 19:31, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

When you write, "from your edits so far this you have little understanding of the various writing systems," you are making a mistake based on insufficient evidence. In fact, I have academic training in Chinese, various Indo-European languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Japanese (this is revealed on my user page) and also in linguistics. I have extensive experience in teaching English reading both to English-as-a-second-language learners and to native speakers of English and also some experience in teaching Chinese literacy to second-language learners. I have read a number of scientific books and articles about the origin and development of writing systems around the world, and about dyslexia and reading instruction. I have immediate family relatives whose first languages of literacy were Japanese, Chinese, or English. Please do not assume too much about other users' backgrounds until you have checked more facts; the article can improve in content best by all of us looking up references carefully and then checking their quality. I appreciate the efforts you have made on your user page to share references with other Wikipedians and will be looking up many of those references. Feel free to look at a subpage of my user page for citations on some closely related issues. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 20:10, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

The reviews of Dehaene's book from the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the Frontal Cortex blog are easily available popular reviews by reviewers with relevant professional training and experience. The review in the journal Nature is, alas, behind a paywall. (This is a frequent problem in all online research--many of the best sources are less accessible to the general public than worse sources.) A straightforward Google Scholar search turns up many professional publications by Stanislas Dehaene on reading. I hope this helps answer your question about Dehaene's professional standing and previous publications. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 20:31, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

It was the Washington Post review which i read before making my comments above. If you have been following the recent international research papers regarding multiple neurological processes which are involved in the decoding of visual symbols to the sounds the represent, to meaningful communication, many of these processes happen independently and are not part of precise sequence, but rather in a more random cycle. And that perception and "the filling in" of information gaps based on experience or context happens more than was previously understood. The old theories, good in their day, which this book was based on are now being overturned, especially the promotion of phonics only approaches of teaching and the discrediting of whole language, when each teaching method addresses a different type of neurological information processing, both of which are integral parts of the reading process. dolfrog (talk) 21:20, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for identifying the review you read. It would be especially helpful to also identify the sources you are relying on for using the review as a basis for dismissing the book by Dehaene, one of the leading researchers on the neurology of dyslexia. (Once you read his book, you'll see how careful he has been in his research for many years.) I am especially curious about your statements about methods of reading instruction--where is the evidence about which methods work best? These issues are definitely of importance for the article, which like all Wikipedia articles ought to be based on reliable sources. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 14:35, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

There are many leading dyslexia researchers from many countries, (I have included some PubMed research paper collections of many leading dyslexia researchers on my dolfrog user page) and researching dyslexia various writing systems, which create different cognitive issues which cause the dyslexic symptom. Dyslexia is about having problem with a man made communication system the visual notation of speech. Each language has is own range of sound frequencies that it uses, added to which there are different forms of visual notations of speech in the form of different writing systems. Dehaene's research has only been concerned with a single writing system the Latin Alphabet writing system. There are at least two seperate areas of the brain involved in the reading process, the lexical (whole word) and the sub-lexic (phonic) areas of information processing, which have been identified since 2008. And again these areas of information processing have varying importance depending on the orthography of the writing system and language being used. It has only been in the last few years that researchers have been beginning to understand the multiple cognitive processes which are involved in the reading process, and much of this understanding has come about as a result of international research into dyslexia, and especially Alexia or acquired dyslexia resulting from stroke. dolfrog (talk) 02:49, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your further comments. When you write, "Dehaene's research has only been concerned with a single writing system the Latin Alphabet writing system," I have to strenuously disagree, because I have read his book. Dehaene has actually done more research in other writing systems than most authors on dyslexia, as anyone who reads his book will be plainly able to see. (I was very impressed with the quality of previous publications he cites about Chinese, my undergraduate major, most of which are unknown to most writers about dyslexia.)

I appreciate the links you have provided to many primary research articles on your user page, and looked up a couple of those over this weekend (which will be the basis for my next edit of this article, after a few more days of digesting what I read directly from the journal you kindly cited). On the same run to friendly local academic library, I checked out quite a few textbooks and treatises on dyslexia from various points of view, to update a bibliography on the subject I began keeping in the 1980s. I'll post the updated bibliography, which I will continue to update from time to time for years to come, to my user page soon, following your example.

I want to make clear that my interest in the issue of dyslexia comes precisely from knowing that "there are different forms of visual notations of speech in the form of different writing systems." That is the interest I had, as a student of Russian, Chinese, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, and other languages, in the dyslexia literature. I have had the dismaying experience over the years of observing many authors about dyslexia making demonstrably false statements about reading based on what they think they know about other writing systems. Scholars of Chinese and Japanese (for example the late John DeFrancis and J. Marshall Unger) have been appalled at how often mistaken assumptions about how Chinese characters operate as a writing system have led to mistaken inferences about how human reading works. Stanislas Dehaene gets these facts right, and that is precisely why I heartily recommend his book to anyone who wants to better understand how reading operates neurologically for any human being, as a cultural innovation in the human species as a whole, and as a difficulty to be overcome by a learner with dyslexia. As they say in Chinese, 百聞不如一見, so reading Dehaene's book thoughtfully will be far more beneficial than hearing excuses for not reading it. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 03:25, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Ok when this book is freely available online via google books or another onlime publisher, I will read it. So until then I can only take your word for its valuable and enlightening contents I am dyslexic, and due to my own cognitive subtypes of dyslexia i need text to be presented as it is on this web site all multi-coloured which is how i cope with unfamiliar complex text. dolfrog (talk) 03:39, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Spelling question: "dyslexic" is much more attested for all parts of speech than "dyslectic."

I see that there is a variation in spelling in the article between "dyslexic" and "dyslectic." Checking dictionaries just now, especially the dictionaries that are most authoritative for editing professionally edited text in either the United States or Britain, I see that "dyslexic" is far and away the more attested spelling. This is also attested by Wiktionary, entry "dyslexic," which of courses has to follow the reliable sources. The Wikipedia Manual of Style guides editors to follow preferred spellings attested in major dictionaries when editing articles. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 19:59, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Renewing my question here, because there ought to be a source for spellings used on Wikipedia. So far, I don't see any evidence that any professionally edited book uses any spelling but "dyslexic" for a noun or an adjective related to the word "dyslexia," and Wikipedia always prefers the more commonplace spelling. Currently, most other Wikipedia articles that mention dyslexia include only the spelling "dyslexic" and not the spelling "dyslectic" at all. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 14:31, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree and made the change. A quick look at the journal references shows "dyslexics" to be prevalentLateg (talk) 12:41, 5 July 2010 (UTC).

Thanks for the spelling correction. While looking this up, to be sure what the preferred spelling is, I actually found a link via Google that laughs at this very Wikipedia article because of that spelling issue. It's probably particularly important to follow standard English spellings in an article about dyslexia. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 16:30, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

I see that since you did the first pass of correcting spelling, Dolfrog kindly reverted a large section of the article that had been deleted some time before when I first began editing this article, and that brought back in some more misspellings. Because the reverted section included citations to particular articles and books, I was even able to check those articles and books as I went along, and to confirm that in all cases the spelling "dyslexic" was preferred by the authors writing in English as native speakers of English. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 03:44, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Dyslexia has a Greek origin. In Greek we call it "Δυσλεξία" while the person with that health issue is called "Δυσλεκτικός". I'm pretty sure that the reference to the person with dyslexia should be dyslectic. A quick search on English dictionaries though have shown that (wrongly in my opinion) the prevailing form of the word is dyslexic (although dyslectic is used and considered correct as well). The word in the "dyslectic" form is been used in hundreds of scientific articles as well http://scholar.google.gr/scholar?q=dyslectic&hl=en&btnG=%C1%ED%E1%E6%DE%F4%E7%F3%E7 (although again the dyslexic form prevails). Papagel (talk) 09:28, 6 July 2010 (UTC) lol

Yes, I can read Greek too, but in English Wikipedia we follow English sources (dictionaries) for spelling, and they all agree that "dyslexic" is the preferred spelling. (Because the word was not coined for its current meaning in Greek, but rather in another language--which as I recall was EnglishGerman--from Greek roots, the Greek form simply illustrates the principle that each language spells in its own way, sometimes in disregard of other languages.) I hope this puts the matter to rest; I've done a lot of looking up to make sure that the spelling was well attested and correct as I've edited the article. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 11:30, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

language evolves, dyslexia is a new concept from the 1880s and the word dyslexia was created to define this newly recognised disability using Greek and Latin. There are also differences between the various English speaking cultures as to how many words are spelt, and even differences in meaning of some words between the different cultures. Dyslexic is the accepted form of spelling across most of the cultures who use the English language, and the many translation services which translate articles written in English, so to use any different spelling increase the margins of error in meaning when these articles are translated. dolfrog (talk) 12:33, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Good point that standardized spelling helps ease machine translation. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 12:41, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Cross-Linguistic Neuroimaging and Dyslexia: A Critical View

I have found the research paper "Cross-Linguistic Neuroimaging and Dyslexia: A Critical View" by Tarik Hadzibeganovica, Maurits van den Noortc, Peggy Bosche, Matjaz Perc, Rosalinde van Kralingen, Katrien Mondt and Max Coltheart and i will see how it fits into the dyslexia article. dolfrog (talk) 23:47, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

The research paper is a review research paper, and supports the information already in the article regarding cognitive subtypes of dyslexia, and that the cognitive skills required to perform the reading task differ according to differences in language and writing system orthography. I will add the paper as reference for the appropriate content dolfrog (talk) 00:12, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Dyslexia/Reorganization 2010 a new discussion

Hi All

I will also be posting a copy of the content below on the Talk page of the Alexia article.

The Wiki Project Dyslexia, was set up 2007 with the aim of improving dyslexia article on Wikipedia. The first step was seen as summerising the existing 2007 article, and creating a series of specialised sub articles to provide more detailed information with regard to the many specialised areas of dyslexia. Much of this has now been achieved, especially during 2009 and 2010. The dyslexia article now meets many more of the required standards as set out by Wikipedia, and has a more universal sourced content.

So we need to move on and set up some new goals for the Wiki Project Dyslexia. Currently the content of the dyslexia article only relates to developmental dyslexia, and not the wider range of topics which are also part of the inclusive definitions of dyslexia, such as Alexia (acquired dyslexia), the various theoretical "Models of Reading" which have resulted from various strands of dyslexia research.

To help us move on I edited some of the Wiki Project Dyslexia sub-articles in an attempt ot open a discussion as to the next steps to be taken by the Wiki Project Dyslexia with regard to ALL of the Wikipedia dyslexia related articles, some of which may still need to be identified. I have made some changes and additions to the Wiki Project Dyslexia articles,

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Dyslexia
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Dyslexia/Proposed organization
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Dyslexia/Dyslexia sub-articles
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Dyslexia/Reorganization 2010
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Dyslexia/Developmental dyslexia reorganisation
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Dyslexia/Alexia reorganization

There are more sub articles that go to make up the Wiki Project Dyslexia, but thye have not been recently revised or edited.

Please have a look at these proposals and add any thoughts or ideas you may have dolfrog (talk) 12:55, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Political correctness

Moved from "What about Strengths of Dyslexia?"

I changed bits of the first paragraph in order to make it more politcally correct. Basically I just changed it to a learning 'difference' instead of disorder and added other difficulties other than reading as it is a common misunderstanding that dyslexia can simply be defined as a 'reading disorder'. It is in fact a complicated learning difference that can affect almost all academic areas whether it comes to memorizing historical dates, mental math in algebra, or understanding maps, not only reading. 24.6.170.162 (talk) 22:36, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Let's be sure to use reliable sources for medicine-related articles before making substantive edits to this article. Medical accuracy is more important than political correctness, and any major statement about dyslexia in the article should be sourced to (preferably multiple) reliable secondary sources. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 16:01, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree with WeijiBaikeBianji and reverted the edits to reflect the citations. Political correctness only applies specific societies and is not global, Wikipedia is a global encyclopedia dolfrog (talk) 21:21, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

"Invitation to edit" trial

It has been proposed at Wikipedia talk:Invitation to edit that, because of the relatively high number of IP editors attracted to Dyslexia, it form part of a one month trial of a strategy aimed at improving the quality of new editors' contributions to health-related articles. It would involve placing this:

You can edit this page. Click here to find out how.

at the top of the article, linking to this mini-tutorial about MEDRS sourcing, citing and content, as well as basic procedures, and links to help pages. Your comments regarding the strategy are invited at the project talk page, and comments here, regarding the appropriateness of trialling it on this article, would be appreciated. Anthony (talk) 12:05, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

The list of articles for the trial is being reconsidered, in light of feedback from editors, and should be ready in a day or two. If you have any thoughts about the Invitation to edit proposal, they would be very welcome at the project talk page. Anthony (talk) 14:50, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed

One or more portions of this article duplicated other source(s). The material was copied from: http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/126/4/841.full (content was present in the article from 4 June 2007 to 15 October 2010). Infringing material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.) For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:38, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

English spelling reform link

The article mentions that:

"children with reading problems in one language might not have a reading problem in a language with a different orthography."

but, later on, it is stated that:

"There is no cure for dyslexia."

I think there are many linguists and many educators who believe that if English spelling was to be made more phonemic, rates of dyslexia in English countries (which are much higher than in phonemic languages) would be dramatically reduced. So, there is a cure for dyslexia! Fix the language, not kids!

(I am a teacher with 25 years of experience in teaching and with a degree in linguistics.)

Add Unlocking Dyslexia in Japanese from 5.July.2011 WSJ

Add Unlocking Dyslexia in Japanese excerpt example

Researchers have long observed that some dyslexics have an easier time with languages like Japanese and Chinese, in which characters represent complete words or ideas, than they do with languages like English, which use separate letters and sounds to form words. ... "There are very real differences in the brain's reading circuit for an alphabet as opposed to a language like Chinese," says Maryanne Wolf, a professor of child development and director of the Center for Reading and Language Research at Tufts University in Medford, Mass. Dyslexics "think visually. They analyze patterns," she says. Character-based languages are mastered through memorization, a skill that dyslexics tend to rely on more than do typical language learners, says Sally Shaywitz, co-director of the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity in New Haven, Conn. And language characters are more like pictures than letters, which can be easier for many dyslexics to reproduce, she says. Dyslexia, the most common of all learning disabilities, is a neurologically based disorder that causes difficulties in language-related tasks. It occurs regardless of a person's intelligence or level of education. As many as one in five people have dyslexia to some degree, according to the Connecticut Longitudinal Study, a long-term study of about 450 school-age children that concluded in the early 2000s. A study of school-age children published last year in Psychological Science compared how good readers and dyslexic readers learn language. Using brain-imaging technology, researchers at the Yale Center found that when people with dyslexia read in English they rely on the same region of the brain as do readers of kanji, a character-based language in Japan. By contrast, a somewhat different region of the brain is used by good English readers as well as by children reading kana, another Japanese language, but one in which each character represents a sound, as in English.

Emphasis: Written Chinese is not necessarily connected to spoken dialects, such as the Beijing dialect of Mandarin Chinese. 97.87.29.188 (talk) 20:59, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

I doubt this meets WP:MEDRS anyway. Dbrodbeck (talk) 21:05, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

"Anyway"? Why Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine) comment? 97.87.29.188 (talk) 21:42, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

The Wall Street Journal is not a peer reviewed secondary source. Dbrodbeck (talk) 22:51, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Adult Diagnosed Dyslexia

Hello All,

Please forgive the clumsiness. I am relatively new to this aspect of Wikipedia. Let me explain my situation. I am a doctoral student currently trying to complete an assignment in which we are to "improve" information about a subject in reading on the internet. My professor's rationale is that there is a lot of "bad" or "not helpful" information out there, and he wants us to pick a corner and improve it. I am deeply interested in Adult Diagnosed Dyslexia, or Dyslexia that is not officially diagnosed until adulthood. My interest stems from my personal experiences with this and I have been doing research for a couple of weeks now to discern information about those who may struggle with not receiving a diagnosis until later in life. I noticed the dyslexia page here has a section for signs and symptoms for "secondary school children and adults" that could use some more information; however, the information I have (and need to post for my project) is likely to be disproportionately large compared to the other sections and contain more than just "signs and symptoms." I am wondering if I might be able to make a separate "adult diagnosed dyslexia" article and link it to this page, or if adding another section to this article would be appropriate. Essentially, I am looking for feedback from those most involved in this community of dyslexic information on what and where the information on adult diagnosed dyslexia would be most helpful and useful?

I really appreciate the help. I want to contribute in useful ways, as I think this topic truly deserves space and care. Thank you again.

A.Kaseroff (talk) 18:14, 20 December 2011 (UTC) A.Kaseroff

Changes

Hi all,

I've done some fairly large changes today- moving the history timeline into the history article and removing a load of copyvio text - I'm going to get the dust settle on that before I do any other major changes but I'd like to raise the issue that the 'Dyslexia research' section is much more detailed and advanced that the Dyslexia_research article that it links to - I'd like to spin that out into the Dyslexia_research article as per WP:SS assuming that there are no objections... Fayedizard (talk) 20:21, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Okay so nobody appeared to object, so I've done some more heavy duty work today - moving various parts of the main article into the sub-articles. Again will let the dust settle for a bit - Any problem's let me know :) Fayedizard (talk) 22:04, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Yet more hack-and-slash editing today, but I think that should be the last of it for a good while - it's time to take a bit more of a forensic approach... Fayedizard (talk) 22:16, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Might be a copy via...

So this edit [3] introduced some text in 2009 that appears to be taken from this page [4] - which google dates at 9 Nov 2004... not sure what other people think but I'm going to have a go at extracting/rewritting while keeping the stuff that's been cited since... might be a touch messy for a while... Fayedizard (talk) 21:34, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

may be if you had good copy editing and research skills you could further develop these articles, and demonstrate that you are able to make a positive contribution to the dyslexia project. dolfrog (talk) 02:51, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

DCDC2 and DCDC2 (gene)

Two different articles devoted to the same gene. The gene is associated with a form of dyslexia. Would be great to merge the articles and maybe mention the gene in "Dyslexia". Cheers, --CopperKettle 12:38, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Well spotted. The creator of DCDC2 should have updated DCDC2 (gene). The merge should be uncontroversial, procedure is at Help:Merging. You should end up with the modified content in DCDC2 (gene) and DCDC2 a redirect with the appropiate talk page template. --Mirokado (talk) 20:38, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

 Done I have gone ahead and merged DCDC2 (gene) into DCDC2. Boghog (talk) 05:55, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Proposed cognitive subtypes

The sentence "There are three proposed cognitive subtypes of dyslexia: auditory, visual and attentional." appears only in the lead. It has six references with only four facts that need supporting: "proposed", "auditory", "visual" and "attentional". This is contrary to the relevant part of the Wikipedia Manual of Style. What does "proposed" mean here? Is this subdivision not generally accepted? The number of references implies that this information does not belong in the lead. The lead should contain the currently accepted definition of dyslexia. The first sentence appears to define dyslexia well in summary (if it does not in fact do so it needs to be changed). So why is this sentence there? A proposal is not a definition: in the absence of a detailed explanation it looks as if its removal to later in the article was entirely justified. Depending on any explanation it may be possible to copy the sentence to later in the article, moving the references to the copy. --Mirokado (talk) 20:15, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

There is no agreed definition of dyslexia, and the best research based defintion is in that research based sentence, you really do need to do some research, as you seem to have no understanding of dyslexia. dolfrog (talk) 07:24, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Updates for accessibility

I have agreed with User:Dolfrog (see User talk:Dolfrog/Archives/2012 1#June 2012 among other places) that I will look at both this and related articles when making updates. I will use the list presented in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject_Dyslexia#From the disability project. I hope the original author of that contribution won't mind if we update it as necessary without changing anything else there.

I suggest we discuss issues common to all articles on this talk page.

To start with I will be concentrating on accessibility (see WP:ACCESSIBILITY) which is concerned with making Wikipedia easy to use also for people with disabilities. The obvious example of this is vision impaired users with a screen reader, but, in the context of these articles, it is also important to make the articles easy to comprehend and, for editors, easy to edit. My first edits will thus deal with updating the structure of the articles to take advantage of the work, by many of our fellow editors, in these directions which was not available when the articles were created.

There will be no change at all to the content presented to the reader unless I say otherwise in an edit summary. While I will be changing the way the source creates the article I am not anticipating any substantial change to the style of the presented article. I will structure the changes carefully so that everything mentioned in the edit summary can be seen clearly in the difference listing (I do this anyway so I can easily check the edits).

I will add progress reports and other updates as necessary here in accordance with my normal practice which has worked well on other similar activities. Comments welcome. --Mirokado (talk) 21:18, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

First set of edits to Dysgraphia. A summary of the main points here which will also be relevant for subsequent edits (I will add to this list as necessary without cluttering it with signatures etc):

• using {{cite pmid}} and friends for {{cite journal}} when it has a relevant identifier. This means that the source is more concise, improving readability, and we get consistency within an article and across articles for free since all citations share the same Cite journal definition. I have added year to the existing first author in the reference name as an orientation aid for source editors.
• normalising use of name="fred" in ref tags and similar: uniform use of the quotes helps editors searching for multiple occurences in source text.
• moving multiply-defined reference definitions to the reference list. This means that all occurrences of that inline citation are consistent throughout the article, which can help when searching for them.
• in the case of Dysographia there was only one inline ref definition left, so I moved that to the references list as well, again for source consistency.
• some changes for citation consistency, for example using an appropriate wp:Citation Style 1 definition if available when the other references do so, presentation of author names.
• placing the references in a References section. This is consistent with the lead article Dyslexia and leaves the section title Notes free for "notes" (out-of-line additional information) as opposed to "references" which are out-of-line external supporting documents.

As you can see, consistency will be a major theme of these edits. --Mirokado (talk) 18:45, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

using {{cite pmid}} and friends for {{cite journal}} is not a good idea very not practacle for most editors, and hardly ever used. The inline system is best and easiest to use, especially when there are large numbers of references. Not too sure about the Notes either, most just call them references and further reading, which has not extended to research papers. dolfrog (talk) 20:02, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

There are two Wiki citation generators used for most articles, especially for those using PubMed ID or DOI reference numbers Diberri Wikipedia template filling and DOI Wikipedia reference generator The PubMed option tries to include the DOI when possible. (you always added the DOI manually if need be) dolfrog (talk) 19:33, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. That is after all why I started this section! I chose a smallish article to act as an example, so not all the options for dealing with a larger article are immediately apparent. Subsections follow, which I hope will make it easier to thread the various individual issues as well as any general comments here. It is not particularly urgent to do any more of these changes until either others have contributed to this discussion or I have to make some "real" edits anyway, so I will concentrate on other issues for the time being... --Mirokado (talk) 23:20, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Cite pmid

Those templates are not very widely used at least in part because they are fairly new. They would in any case not necessarily be retrofitted to large, stable articles until somebody needed to maintain them. However my experience of using them has been positive. The author formats in the article before the update were inconsistent, which proves that the current situation is unsatisfactory, so without this change you will need to do some careful manual inspection of all the articles. Please.

Let's leave the Cite pmid definitions in that one article for now, I updated it precisely so we (all involved editors not just you and me) could discuss it. Consensus can develop at leisure... Well done for mentioning those tools, I will check them out as necessary. But the generated templates from Cite pmid already contain both ids if both are available with no manual intervention. It has the significant advantage that the resulting source is much easier to read.

As long as the article content is not swamped by reference definitions, and particularly if you or others are making sure the references are consistent when creating new ones, I don't mind too much about using Cite pmid and friends in the actual article or not. (I sort of mind, just not too much). --Mirokado (talk) 23:20, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Multiply-used references

From my experience with Gaza flotilla raid (not as you can imagine the easiest of articles to help maintain) and related articles, I know that it is difficult for editors to move content accurately if it contains a reference which is also used elsewhere in the article. Precisely splitting (moving content from one article to another) is one of the things you are asking other editors to do, if I have understood you correctly. While I am not yet stating any opinion about doing that, the changes I am proposing prepare the ground for exactly what you appear to want.

This affects references whose definitions are used more than once. It is a significant improvement to have those defined in a predictable place, not needing to be placed elsewhere in the same article if content is moved. That will help new or occasional editors. In Dyslexia this affects only ten out of the 88 citations. --Mirokado (talk) 23:20, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

General legibility

Perhaps you are so familiar with the source of these articles that you do not realise, but it is totally illegible for a newcomer once there is more reference-definition text than content. Since Wikipedia is "the encyclopedia everyone can edit" such a barrier needs to be removed if it becomes a significant hindrance to new contributors, particularly those with any text comprehension disability, particularly for articles which clearly need a lot of refactoring. It has so far been a massive hindrance to me: even after half an hour's confusion I still could not tell what you did not like when you did [this reversion]. One of the sentences being moved consists of 12 words of content and 148 words of reference definition! Did anything change as well as being moved? Virtually impossible to tell with a reasonable expenditure of time.

Thus it will also be necessary to move the definitions out of paragraphs whose content is otherwise swamped, leaving the much shorter named references with which we are already familiar. If we are not doing everything in one go, that can be done as necessary when editing a problematical section.

Any remaining references can quite happily stay with the content (even if that is not what I would prefer). One or two at the end of a longish paragraph don't do much harm, for example. --Mirokado (talk) 23:20, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Most editors make one edit in a single section of an article, and they add the reference supporting citations in that section wit the edit, and then the citation is automatically collected in the reference section at the bottom of the article, if the reference has be n used before then a shorten name duplicate can be used. This is a medical article using research paper references not magazine citations. Medical article citations are research paper based, and therefore all editors need to be familiar with medical research paper sources, and the various citation options available. Newcomers have to learn about and undersrtand the content of an article before they can begin editing. So may be you need to begin to read the research papers that support the content of this article, before you begin to make nay more changes. I have noticed that you have a degree, and you would have had to do much research and learning to acquire the knowledge required for your degree, the same applies to medical articles you have to learn about the subject, and the tools you need to work in the area. So you need to become as familiar as I am with the various sources of information, or are you just another fleeting editor not really interested full time dedication to the dyslexia project. dolfrog (talk) 13:23, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

With all due respect, I suggest you read and familiarize yourself with the Manual of Style and the relevant WP policies and guidelines before attempting a wholesale restructuring of the article. Please don't demean your fellow editors--labeling us "fleeting" is not a good idea. Engaging in ad hominem attacks probably won't be a productive strategy, either. You may have a great deal of experience with this subject matter, or you may not. It doesn't much matter, though, because you don't own the article. This is a community effort, and it's not within your purview to tell other editors what to do and dismiss their opinions with a callous "you're not as dedicated as am I" remark.

Perhaps I misread or misunderstood what you wrote and, if I did, I apologize. If not, I recommend you reevaluate your approach. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 14:54, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi I have been part of the Dyslexia project since it started back in 2007 / 2008 the article currently only needs a few tweaks here and there and the addition of some more recent research citations to support the content. There has been a need for this article to be split into a Genaral dyslexia article and a Developmental Dyslexia article, which what most of the current content relates to. There are two types of dyslexia, Developmental Dyslexia which has a genetic origin, and Alexia (acquired dyslexia) which is results fro ma brain injury, substance abuse, stroke or progressive illness. And the dyslexia article should be a summary of both types of dyslexia and the various subtypes with more detailed information on the specific subtypes articles. This has been a proposal from the 2010 Dyslexia project plan of action, but due to a lack of editors willing to engage in the task it never got off the ground. All I have mentioned is that dyslexia has many underlying medical causes which require understanding to enable editing of the articles content, and that edits need to learn like I have how to find the information, and how best to make changes to a medical article, which requires secondary, Review, research citations. I am also aware that many who read this article may have a learning disability, especially as dyslexia is a reading disability which I share with many others. As research improves the understanding of the causes of the dyslexic symptom, then editors should include new findings. Due to my own dyslexia caused by auditory processing disorder, i have word finding problems, which means that i am not able write what I understand the is best suited to Wikipedia articles, but I can find and add the information and supporting research citations, such is the frustration of living with this type of communication disability. dolfrog (talk) 15:31, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

(ec) I can respond to your concerns about "attempting a wholesale restructuring of the article". The reference reorganisations I am (was?) suggesting above would be in preparation for splitting the main article which dolfrog has said he wants, and I could help with. But there are lots of other things I can be doing instead. The approach of do a bit, explain, wait for responses, self-revert if necessary normally works a bit better than this even if other editors say "please don't do it" which of course can happen. I won't be reorganising any of the references in these articles unless there is a clear consensus to do so. There are lots of other routine changes such as completing the odd reference and making presentation consistent which I will do as a matter of course as convenient. --Mirokado (talk) 15:52, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Can UNIFON help dyslexics?

Has there been any research to see if Unifon could help dyslexics?

If yes, please add info re. it to both the dyslexia and Unifon Wiki pages. Phantom in ca (talk) 01:30, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm curious about what motivates that question. It seems completely random, but it is not the sort of question somebody would ask without a reason. Looie496 (talk) 02:56, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

The main problem is that the system is based on phonics, and most dyslexics have problems processing the the gaps between the sounds that make up a word, so this system poses the same problems as the all other alphabet writing systems to dyslexics who have problems using alphabet writing systems. Dyslexia is langauge dependent and writing system dependent. It appears to be a novel experiment, an attempt to simplify the structure of the English language, at one research centre. dolfrog (talk) 03:55, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Cause of dyslexia

The actual cause of Dyslexia has now been determined: Physical Punishment.

As a labor manager I have counseled hundreds of working class men who came from many different backgrounds. Dyslexia was very common among those who were raised by an abusive adult who used physical punishment. I then became a teacher and found the exact pattern among my students. What appears genetic is often, in fact, environment. For example, each generation that continues the cycle of physical abuse will have the same dyslexia trait and naturally will assume it to be genetic.

Thankfully, only 10% of parents today continue to abuse their kids unknowingly in this way, whereas closer to 50% were still practicing this punishment when I was in school. Likewise, parents who smoke cigarettes have dropped from 50% to 10% for the same reason, better knowledge. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.234.195.40 (talk) 20:21, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Idiot.