A Durham University researcher in England has claimed dyslexia “does not exist” because it has no valid scientific basis. Julian Elliott says the term is largely an “emotional construct” and that poor readers wanted to be called dyslexic because of a “widespread, but wrong, perception that dyslexics are generally intellectually bright,” reported the Daily Mail Friday. “Contrary to claims of ‘miracle cures’ there is no sound, widely accepted body of scientific work that has shown there exists any particular teaching approach more appropriate for ‘dyslexic’ children than for other poor readers,” he said in the Times Education Supplement. The British Dyslexia Association called the statements inflammatory. “Dyslexia survives as a term because it is a real condition,” the group said. “I know of so many individual cases which completely refute what he is saying,” said Susan Tresman, the head of the association. © Copyright 2005 by United Press International

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