From dyslexia to dyslexias, from dysgraphia to dysgraphias, from a cause to causes: a look at current research on developmental dyslexia and dysgraphia.

摘要

Interpreting the reading and spelling profiles of children with developmental dyslexia and/or dysgraphia has traditionally proven a challenging task. In particular, problems seem to arise when trying to provide a unitary account of all individuals with developmental dyslexia or of all individuals with developmental dysgraphia. These attempts to provide a single account or a single generalization to cover all aspects of dyslexia consistently result in empirical problems, inconsistent results, and failures to replicate. The articles included in this issue suggest that the key to explaining this pattern may lie in the selectivity and heterogeneity of developmental dyslexia and dysgraphia types, in the effect of modulating factors such as orthographies, and in the need to search for various (rather than unitary) causes underlying the deficit (in general, spanning auditory, phonological, visual mechanisms etc. on one hand, and orthographic-specific impairments on the other). Indeed, these various causes lead to a variety of specific developmental dyslexias and dysgraphias.