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Specificity and parameters in defining dyslexia

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Conclusion

The concern for specificity in definition on the part of researchers and policy makers is understandable. Those on the line, confronted by children who need to be helped, and those who have a working familiarity with the complexity of the reading process, and of the reading disability syndrome, may share my reservations about this specificity: that in defining reading disability strictly in terms of a significant deviation from IQ restrictions are imposed that may obscure important aspects and interactions in the clinical picture. I am in favor of careful selection of samples and of persistence in the search for better defining parameters. Until we have them it may be desirable to operate within looser guidelines and to base treatment on a careful evaluation of linguistic, cognitive, emotional and cultural functioning, when the aim is to teach individual children. If Alexander Pope’s admonition (in “An Essay on Criticism,” Part I) is kept in mind we should not go too far astray: First follow Nature, and your judgment frame By her just standard...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Robinson Reading Clinic, Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, New York City

    Jeannette Jefferson Jansky Ph.D. (Educational Director)

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  1. Jeannette Jefferson Jansky Ph.D.
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Jansky, J.J. Specificity and parameters in defining dyslexia. Bulletin of the Orton Society 29, 31–38 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02653731

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