Dyslexia: An English Language Problem?
There is often a greater number of dyslexics in English-speaking countries compared to countries like China, Japan, and even Spain and Italy. Why do we see this difference across countries?
The answer can be found by looking at one cause of dyslexia: a difficulty in processing and remembering the sounds of phonemes. English is a particularly complex language and one that has been described as ‘orthographically nontransparent’. This means that the phonemes do not always have the same sounds. Languages like English that are not ‘transparent’ give rise to greater difficulties in reading.
In contrast, other language such as Spanish and Italian are orthographically transparent and it is easy to match the letter with the correct sound. Languages, such as Chinese or Japanese (Kanji), that use characters require greater use of visual memory, rather than verbal memory skills.
Brain imaging studies have found dyslexics in different languages (English, French and Italian) all showed the same brain deficits involving difficulty in processing verbal information.
Some might suggest that the differences in the education system across countries lead to higher rates of dyslexia in some countries. However, studies that have looked at bilingual children have found that they can struggle in reading in one language (usually English), yet be excellent readers in another language (such as Chinese or Spanish).
