Νευρογνωστικοί υποτύποι της αναπτυξιακής δυσλεξίας (original) (raw)

Νευρογνωστικοί υποτύποι της αναπτυξιακής δυσλεξίας

Developmental dyslexia constitutes a specific learning difficulty of written speech, especially in relation to reading, and is characterized by its wide variety of symptoms. Various hypotheses have been suggested regarding the causes of the disorder, either at the cognitive or the biological level. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the neurocognitive subtypes of developmental dyslexia with a view to determine whether children with dyslexia can be divided into distinct categories based on their deficits in various areas. The sample of our study consisted of 101 children drawn from the 3 th , 4 th , 5 th and 6 th grades of primary schools (mean age 11.15 years), all of whom had been diagnosed with dyslexia by a public diagnostic centre. Students were given a series of tests assessing a wide range of skills. Specifically, the phonological, memory, attention, processing speed, motor, visual, and visual-motor skills were assessed. Our results showed that children with dyslexia can be divided into three subtypes. The first subtype consisted of children who were distinguished based on their performance in tests assessing the phonological, memory, attention, processing speed along with the visual and motor fields. The second subtype consisted of children who were differentiated based on their performance in the field of memory, motor and visualmotor. The third subtype consisted of children who were differentiated in their motor performance only. In conclusion, the findings of the study suggest that school-aged children accredited with developmental dyslexia can be distinguished into subtypes with particular neurocognitive characteristics. In addition, our results have shown that most dyslexic children experience difficulties in more than one cognitive domains and offer empirical support to current models claiming the existence of multiple neurocognitive deficits in developmental dyslexia.