DEMOS Project - Module: Dyslexia

Deficit or difference

Dyslexia is often described with particular emphasis on the skills that the student has problems with or is unable to acquire or master. However, recently people have begun to propose and recognise that dyslexic people may actually have talents in other areas not usually tested in traditional academia. We refer to these contrasting opinions as the deficit and difference models.

Psychologists do not agree on a single definition of dyslexia and therefore it is difficult to come up with a single diagnostic tool for assessment. However, in general, Educational Psychologists do follow a similar method when deciding whether or not a student is dyslexic. At the present time this method is based on an hypothesis that there is a deficit between the student's overall intelligence level and their literacy abilities (i.e. literacy ability is lower than expected). Also, students often show a number of difficulties which would suggest that dyslexia is best described as a syndrome. In this syndrome students show deficits in a range of skills such as memory, reading, spelling, writing and organisation.

However, the problems they experience in these areas are usually out of balance with their cognitive skills in certain other areas : lateral thinking, verbal reasoning, ability to make reasoned arguments, creativity. This is why many students with dyslexia have experienced frustration in their schooling. They are identified by teachers as being bright but are then labelled as lazy because they have difficulty with traditional academic tasks.

In fact it has been suggested that people with dyslexia may possess a different way of thinking and a different set of skills that aren't evident in other people.

West ^[1] has identified skills that are often mentioned as being positive aspects of dyslexia :

good powers of visualisation.
creative thinking skills.
a range of artistic skills.
a holistic rather than analytical approach.
good practical and problem solving skills.

These skills might be an advantage in certain topic areas such as the visual arts, design, computer studies, high-level science subjects (theoretical physics etc.), business, performance arts, marketing, geography. Many employers may be actively searching for these skills when recruiting graduates and a dyslexic student will have an advantage over other students provided he/she is given an opportunity to achieve in these areas.

These two models contrast with one another and are known as the 'deficit' and 'difference' models of dyslexia.

References:
[1] West, T.G. (1997) In the Mind's Eye. New York: Prometheus Books. [Back to text]

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