How dyslexia changes in other languages

I came across a fascinating article that kind of mirrors my non-verbal (gestalt language processor) experience with language. As we know, there’s a large group of autistics who are also dyslexic. But what isn’t talked about much is how one’s home language influences that.

In my case, I didn’t have an “acquired” language. I had to struggle to “learn” language. My first learned language was German. As the article notes, in languages such as Finnish, Hungarian, Basque, Welsh, Albanian, Spanish, Czech, Italian and German, the letters and sounds are matched much more consistently. They are known as transparent orthographies.

Because they are so consistent, having weak phonological awareness is less of an obstacle in these languages, research suggests. Children who are not that good at recognising sounds can still learn to read well in them. For example, German-speaking children with dyslexia “can read with relatively high accuracy. They are very slow at reading, but they can work it out.”

Such slow reading can be a serious obstacle in itself, and even make children stop reading altogether, according to Landerl. But it is different from the hurdles faced by English-speaking children with dyslexia, who may not be able to identify a word at all. Research has in fact shown that an inconsistent spelling system can exacerbate some symptoms of dyslexia.

Even those of us who may think we read English well, still make a hidden effort. Eye-tracking research has shown that English adults' eyes linger more on each word, as if really trying to crack the whole unit. In transparent languages, the eyes just track the letters, and decode the words bit by bit.

English is not the only language that makes these special demands on the brain. Danish spelling is similarly inconsistent (and Danish children also take longer to learn to read, compared with children in more consistently spelled languages). French is somewhere in between, with certain predictable patterns, but also, words that just have to be memorised, such as "monsieur"

I began to think of my students whose home language is Spanish. In America, and indeed much of the “western world,” the predominant methodology of language instruction could easily be described as “English only instruction.” This methodology has its roots in British Empire’s drive for dominance in the world. I wonder why it’s still a dominant theme post empire. As the system squashes the student’s primary language, either directly as a matter of policy or indirectly as a matter of neglect, they lose the ability to anchor their learning in “a language,” and become adrift. Their ability to increase their “academic English” is hampered as their academic skills in their primary language aren’t supported.

The unfortunate conclusion that I’ve reached is that English isn’t a good language for literacy instruction in those with dyslexia. But, this presupposes a next question - what language should be used for such instruction in a country whose dominant or official language is English? I think that this question tracks with the movement to create an international auxiliary language - like Espersanto.

Such is the rabbit hole that my brain has gone down in exploring the basic premise of my next book project. This project has no title yet, but is loosely arranged around the challenges of growing literacy in non-verbal (gestalt processor) populations in systems dominated by “the science of reading,” which doesn’t even acknowledge that gestalt processors exist (at best), or at worse treats us as defective analytic processors in need of therapy. We’re kind of like that generation of left handed people who were forced by the system to become right handed.

Now that I’ve share the problem with you, what do you think? Let me know in the comments below.