Dyslexia and Hyperlexia: Diagnosis and Management of Developmental Reading Disabilities: v. 1 (Neuropsychology and Cognition) - Tapa dura

Even though I had been studying reading problems in children for a number of years as a means of understanding cognitive processes, I became deeply committed to the study of developmental dyslexia after my encounter with S. H. , a dyslexic college student. Until then, dyslexia to me remained an interesting phenomenon but somewhat removed from the mainstream of my research interests. The facts that, in spite of his superior IQ, S. H. could read no better than a child in the fifth grade and misspelled even common words such as was and here, however, took me by surprise and made me appreciate the intriguing and challenging nature of developmental dyslexia. This led to a series of studies of college students with reading disability, a group that is relatively unexplored. The general plan of these investigations was to study a small number of disabled readers at any given time, rather intensively. Even though this approach limits the generalizability of the research findings, it lays bare some of the most interesting facts about dyslexia which are obscured in large-scale statistical studies. These studies have now extended well over a decade and are still continuing. As soon as these studies were started, it became obvious that not all reading-disabled college students are alike and that disabled readers could be classified into three broad categories: those with poor decod­ ing skill, those with poor comprehension ability, and those with a combination of these two deficits.

This text summarizes and integrates the voluminous literature on the theoretical, empirical, and applied aspects of reading disabilities. It is intended for reading researchers, practising school psychologists, and reading specialists. The book stresses the view that there are three major kinds of reading disabilities: developmental dyslexia, hyperlexia and non-specific reading disability and that treatment should be targeted at the poorly functioning reading component that is responsible for the particular form of reading disability. A new, ecologically valid approach to the diagnosis of reading disabilities is described and recommendations for remediation and management of the different kinds of reading disabilities are presented. The diagnostic and treatment methods described are substantiated with available research data. This text examines these reading disorders from the perspective of a unified, comprehensive model of reading. The book is written in a readily understandable language and can be adapted quite readily for advanced undergraduate and graduate classes.