How can early detection of dyslexia be improved?
Answer
Transcript
We also think that the screening methods really need to be improved. So currently there is not enough screeners out there. A lot of the screeners out there are not screening all of the components important for learning to read — meaning things like phonological awareness, which is the ability to manipulate the sounds of language, letter sound, letter name knowledge, et cetera.
There's also the piece of oral language, which is really important for reading fluency and reading comprehension. So you want to also screen for things like vocabulary as well as oral listening comprehension, which is just listening to sentences and then deciding which picture goes with the sentence, which really illustrates whether the child has the capacity to understand complex syntax.
And I think more research there of course will be helpful, but I think there’s a general understanding that we can identify changes that follow interventions. And I think it will be interesting to look at those in different languages and in different writing systems and so on.
Our Expert
Nadine Gaab Ph.D.
Nadine Gaab is an associate professor of pediatrics at Boston Children's Hospital and the Harvard Medical School, and a member of the faculty at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
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Topic: Dyslexia, Assessments, Identification




The research reported here is funded by awards to the National Center on Improving Literacy from the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, in partnership with the Office of Special Education Programs (Award #: S283D160003). The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of OESE, OSEP, or the U.S. Department of Education. Copyright © 2021 National Center on Improving Literacy. https://improvingliterarcy.org