Challenging dyslexia

Abstract

Dyslexia remains a troublesome concept. Despite reportedly affecting around one person in ten, and therefore just about every classroom, it continues to elude satisfactory definition. Neuroscientists, theorists and other researchers working in the dominant psychomedical paradigm continue to search for, and disagree vehemently over, neuroanatomical causes of dyslexia. So there is no consensus within this research community on what dyslexia is, nor how it comes about. And dyslexia advocates are among the first to acknowledge that ‘dyslexics’ are a diverse population and that every dyslexic person’s experience of dyslexia is unique. Yet anyone who publicly doubts the usefulness or validity of the dyslexia concept – the idea of dyslexia as a ‘thing’ that can be found in some people’s brains if only we look hard enough – is on treacherous ground. Consider, for example, the case of Julian Elliott. Elliott is both a professor of education at the University of Durham and a qualified educational psychologist. Educational psychologists are trained to assess for and diagnose dyslexia, and so we would perhaps be wise to listen carefully when one of their number expresses doubt over this process. But when Professor Elliott raised his head above the parapet in 2005 by appearing in the Channel 4 Dispatches documentary ‘The Dyslexia Myth’, publishing an article in the Times Educational Supplement (Elliott, 2005) and later another in the Journal of Philosophy of Education, in which he criticised the theoretical basis, empirical validity and educational justification for the dyslexia concept (Elliott and Gibbs, 2008), he was met with scepticism from the mainstream broadsheet press, opposition from high-profile academics and outright hostility from representatives of dyslexia charities.