Dyslexia Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Dyslexia, including details on learning, reading, education, teaching, treatment.

Neurobiology of dyslexia: a reinterpretation of the data.

Ramus F

Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique (EHESS/CNRS/ENS), 46 rue d'Ulm, 75230 Paris Cedex 5, France. franck.ramus@ens.fr

Theories of developmental dyslexia differ on how to best interpret the great variety of symptoms (linguistic, sensory and motor) observed in dyslexic individuals. One approach views dyslexia as a specific phonological deficit, which sometimes co-occurs with a more general sensorimotor syndrome. This article on the neurobiology of dyslexia shows that neurobiological data are indeed consistent with this view, explaining both how a specific phonological deficit might arise, and why a sensorimotor syndrome should be significantly associated with it. This new conceptualisation of the aetiology of dyslexia could generalize to other neurodevelopmental disorders, and might further explain heterogeneity within each disorder and comorbidity between disorders.

Published 15 November 2004 in Trends Neurosci, 27(12): 720-6.
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