New Evidence About the Causes of Dyslexia

A new study suggests that it is a general difficulty with ignoring noise (visual or auditory) that could be responsible for dyslexia. The work suggests new ways to identify dyslexics and to assess the many unevaluated techniques teachers use to help dyslexics in the classroom.

According to the University of Wisconsin-Madison press release:

Misfiring neurons perhaps make it difficult for dyslexics to pick out relevant visual and auditory cues from the expanse of surrounding sounds and patterns, or ‘noise’; it is this inability that may bear heavily on how easily a child can read, says lead author Anne Sperling, who conducted the research as a USC graduate student, alongside co-author Mark Seidenberg, a UW-Madison psychology professor who left USC in 2001.

‘We really want to understand what is going on at the neurological level that’s leading to reading problems,’ says Sperling. ‘[We think] that if a child has a hard time ignoring ‘noise,’ it could distort speech perception and complicate [the recognition] of sound segments, which is essential for learning how to read.’”