Reading Disorder

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Reading Disorder

In DSM-IV, this condition is named reading disorder. It is defined by a reading age well below (usually 1.5-2 standard deviations) the level expected from the child's age and IQ (Yule 1967). Defined in this way, the disorder was found in about 4% of 10-11-year-olds in the Isle of Wight, and about twice that percentage in London (Yule and Rutter 1985).

Clinical features of reading disorder

Specific reading disorders should be clearly distinguished from general backwardness in scholastic achievement resulting from low intelligence or inadequate education. They should also be distinguished from poor reading due to lack of opportunity to learn at home or at school, or due to poor visual acuity. The child presents with a history of serious delay in learning to read, which has been evident from the early years of schooling and has sometimes been preceded by delayed acquisition of speech and language. Errors in reading include omissions.. substitutions, or distortions of words, slow reading, long hesitations, and reversals of words or letters. There may also be poor comprehension.

Writing and spelling are impaired, and in older children these problems may be more obvious than the reading problems. There may be associated emotional problems, but development in other areas is not affected. Compared with children with general backwardness at school, those with specific reading retardation are much more often boys; they are also more likely to have minor neurological abnormalities, and are likely to come from socially disadvantaged homes.

Specific reading retardation is associated with conduct disorder more often than would be expected through chance (Rutter et al. 1970a, 1970b). The association may arise in part because the two conditions have common neurodevelopmental or temperamental origins; in part because reading retardation leads to conduct problems at school when the child is frustrated by failures; and in part because conduct disorder gives rise to problems in learning to read.

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