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Defining Dyslexia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 1998

Max Coltheart  and
Nancy Ewald Jackson
Max Coltheart
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia
Nancy Ewald Jackson
Affiliation:
College of Education, 361 Lindquist Ctr. N., University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, U.S.A.
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Abstract

We argue against defining dyslexia as requiring by definition the presence of demonstrable phonological difficulty, and also against defining it in relation to exclusion criteria. Instead, we suggest that what matters is evaluating any child's set of reading subskills against age-related norms for those subskills. We also argue that in considering the causes of reading difficulty it is essential to distinguish between proximal cause (some abnormality in the information-processing system that the child is using to read) and distal cause (the reason for this system being abnormal). The same proximal cause (e.g. poor phonic knowledge) can be the product of different distal causes in different children (e.g. the distal cause might be constitutional, environmental, or educational).

Keywords

Dyslexialearning to read
Type
Forum on Dyslexia
Information
Child Psychology and Psychiatry Review , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , February 1998 , pp. 12 - 16
Copyright
© 1998 Association for Child Psychology and Psychiatry

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