Developmental dyslexia in adults: a research review

Dr Michael Rice with Professor Greg Brooks of NRDC. NRDC May 2004

ISBN 095 464 9281

Developmental dyslexia in adults: a research review' aims to generate and share new knowledge, based on evidence from sound research. It adds to what is known about dyslexia from practice, informed advocacy, and research and development work by organisations which have been active in the field over several decades.

Dyslexia is a critically important part of Skills for Life. This report, based on rigorous research, deepens and enriches our knowledge of dyslexia and the needs of learners and tackles some challenging issues.

In a short speech at its launch in July, Greg Brooks, project director of the report, made four points about the review.

I shall be very brief, because I am just going to state four things that this report does not say and five that it does, interwoven.

Firstly, the report does not say that there is no such thing or condition or problem as dyslexia. It does say that no two researchers or experts agree on how to define it.

Secondly, the report does not say that there are no such people as people with dyslexia. It does say that no two researchers or experts agree on how to identify them.

Thirdly, the report does not say that nothing is known about how to help adult learners who have dyslexia or (as was the immediate reaction when Ursula Howard and I gave a presentation on it to the Advisory Group for the 'Understanding Dyslexia' project in January) that 'We might as well all go home then'. It does say (see pp.79-87) that there is very little even moderately reliable evidence from research on how to do this; and that in turn is not meant to downplay what practitioners know from decades of practical experience.

Fourthly, the report does not say that there is no point in teaching adults with dyslexia separately from other adults with literacy difficulties. It does say that there is at present no warrant in research for this. In particular - and to me this is the most startling finding in the whole report - 'there appears to be no experimental evidence comparing group outcomes between adult dyslexics and "ordinary" adult literacy learners' (p.86). But again this is not to deny that practitioners may well have had success with teaching adult dyslexics separately.

Finally, the fact that so little can be deduced from existing research means that there is everything to play for.

For further information, download this report

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