Foreword

Summary

In any area of scientific inquiry, a comprehensive text discussing recent advances in both theory and research is always a welcome addition to the existing literature. Of course, such a text must also provide historical perspective in order for the reader to fully appreciate the importance and relative impacts of new findings in the field, in terms of whether or not such findings provide support for the theories that generated them and whether or not they can or have been replicated. Finally, such a text must provide a critical and relatively unbiased analysis of the theories discussed in the text and research findings related to those theories. Elliott and Grigorenko's book, The Dyslexia Debate, in my opinion, satisfies all three criteria. It is the latest in a series of texts focusing on issues surrounding the origin of difficulties in acquiring early literacy skills that were published during the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.

Chapter 1 of the book focuses on the multitude of definitions and descriptions of dyslexia as a term used in reference to developmental reading difficulties. The reader who is unfamiliar with the relevant literature will be immediately struck by the utter lack of consensus regarding whether dyslexia is little more than a descriptive and somewhat misleading label for early reading difficulties or a neuropsychological construct with well-established construct validity. After providing a brief account of early work done in the study of developmental reading difficulties, the chapter focuses on current definitional issues and thoroughly discusses the controversy surrounding a number of definitions of dyslexia, including (1) discrepancy-based definitions such as the traditional IQ-achievement discrepancy and the discrepancy between reading and listening comprehension; (2) definitions based on response to intervention; and (3) definitions based on causal explanations such as visual deficits and language-based deficits. It becomes painfully clear by the end of Chapter 1 that questions and issues associated with the definition of dyslexia and synonymous terms such as reading disability and specific reading disability will be with us for some time.