Dyslexia: Oral and Written Language Disorder

Abstract

It is now generally accepted that written language attainment is directly associated with oral language ability, and that deficits in oral language will be reflected in written language. This paper examines the links that exist between these two modes of communication from a historical perspective, as well as from current research. The concept and terminology of dyslexia – written language disability – are explored. The impact of deficits in phonology, vocabulary, semantics and syntax on the acquisition of written language is discussed.

Assessing Auditory Processing Disorders in Children with Developmental Dyslexia Using Auditory Cognitive Event-Related Potentials

“…The specific reading and writing disability often has a lifelong persistence probably because of different organization of neuronal connections and different activation of the brain areas in comparison with people without reading/writing problems [5]. Diverse theories and mechanisms have been proposed to account for the neurological aspects of the condition and linguistic defects related to it such as visual defects and the magnocellular system, thus representing the visual theory; the automaticity/cerebellar deficit theory of dyslexia; inability to correctly interpret hearing impressions and the ineffective use of information transferred via the hearing pathway [6,7,8,9]. There are two main competing auditory theories of developmental dyslexia: (1) deficits in phonological awareness and linguistic (speech-language) processing: the phonological theory postulates that dyslexics have a specific impairment in the representation, storage and retrieval of speech sounds [1,2,4], and (2) general deficit in auditory processing of both speech and nonspeech signals, for example, the rapid auditory processing theory: deficits in perception of short or rapidly varying sounds [1,2,4].…”