Friday September 2, 2005
An education professor has claimed that dyslexia does not exist because it has no valid scientific basis.
Writing in today's Times Education Supplement, Professor Julian Elliott argues that the term is largely an "emotional construct".
Experts have failed to agree what it is, and say that being diagnosed as dyslexic makes virtually no difference to the treatment the individual requires, he writes.
The British Dyslexia Association rejected the claims as inflammatory, insisting that it has taken years for teachers to accept that dyslexia is a real condition and not a middle class excuse for poor reading and writing.
Prof Elliott's claims threaten the consensus on dyslexia, which enables children to have extra help in the classroom and more time to complete exams.
The Durham University professor said poor readers wanted to be called dyslexic because of a "widespread, but wrong, perception that dyslexics are generally intellectually bright".
He added that after 30 years in the field he had "little confidence" in his ability to diagnose it.
"Contrary to claims of 'miracle cures' there is no sound, widely accepted body of scientific work that has shown there exists any particular teaching approach more appropriate for 'dyslexic' children than for other poor readers," he says.
But Prof Susan Tresman, chief executive of the British Dyslexia Association, said educational psychologists or trained teachers had no problems spotting the condition.
She told the Times Educational Supplement: "Dyslexia survives as a term because it is a real condition. I know of so many individual cases which completely refute what he is saying."
Up to 6 million Britons are believed to suffer from the brain disorder that disrupts reading and writing.
Last month Princess Beatrice, 17, spoke about how she was diagnosed with the condition at the age of seven after struggling to read books that her younger sister, Eugenie, could manage.
