Perspectives on dyslexia.

Dyslexia, or a reading disability, occurs when an individual has significant difficulty with speed and accuracy of word decoding. Comprehension of text and spelling are also affected. The diagnosis of dyslexia involves the use of reading tests, but the continuum of reading performance means that any cutoff point is arbitrary. The IQ score does not play a role in the diagnosis of dyslexia. The cognitive difficulties of dyslexics include problems with speech perception, recognizing and manipulating the basic sounds in a language, language memory, and learning the sounds of letters. Dyslexia is a neurological condition with a genetic basis. There are abnormalities in the brains of dyslexic individuals. There are also differences in the electrophysiological and structural characteristics of the brains of dyslexics. Physicians play a particularly important role in recognizing children who are at risk for dyslexia and helping their parents obtain the proper assessment.