Today is World Dyslexia Day – it’s a day where we come together as a global community to celebrate the amazing things that people with dyslexia can do and achieve, as well as raise awareness of dyslexia and literacy differences and advocate for better dyslexia support. It’s an important day in the neurodiversity calendar as dyslexia affects between 10% and 20% of people the world over – so there’s a chance there are multiple people in your life who have it, even if they’re not aware of it.
It's a day to reflect and it’s also a day to celebrate, and to really think about dyslexia in our schools, homes, communities and businesses. But even though it’s called ‘Dyslexia Day’, this isn’t limited to a one-day focus. It’s time to create things that we can build on and bring forward into the rest of Dyslexia Awareness Month this October, and carry with us all year round. You can be a part of it by engaging with your local dyslexia association, starting a conversation about dyslexia awareness and accessibility in your school or workplace, and getting involved with our own campaign, Go Red for Dyslexia.
Dyslexia Day is all about looking forward, at the changes we want to make and the world that we can build together. But there’s never been a better day to look back, either – dyslexia awareness has come a long way from the early days, and it’s kind of an amazing journey.
1877
Originally, literacy differences like dyslexia were termed ‘reading blindness’. The earliest instance of this particular phrase is in the writings of Adolph Kussmaul, a German physician, who used the world wortblindheit to describe an inability to read fluently in an otherwise deeply studious and intelligent patient.
1887
This is were we first see the word ‘dyslexia’ used – it can be found numerous times in the patient and case notes of an ophthalmologist from Stuttgart called Rudolf Berlin. It comes from the Greek dys meaning ‘poor’, ‘inadequate’ and lexis, ‘words’ or ‘language’. It was renamed largely to bring the naming in line with ‘similar’ conditions such as alexia and paralexia, but the word didn’t really take off for another few decades.
Late 1880s-90s
A number of British medical practitioners begin taking a closer look at the idea of dyslexia and working on their ideas as to how it might be identified and supported. James Hinshelwood, an ophthalmologist, James Kerr, a council medical officer, and William Pringle Morgan, a general practitioner. These three medical men focused on looking at ‘word-blindness’ as an isolated symptom as opposed to being connected with brain injury or further disabilities and learning difficulties, as had been previously thought.
1896
The earliest detailed description of dyslexia that we have is from 1896 –Dr. Pringle Morgan in Sussex, England describes in his notes a bright and intelligent boy called Percy, who was ‘quick at games’ and was in no way inferior to his classmates, who simply couldn’t learn to read with any fluency.
“Percy F. – a well-grown lad, aged 14 – is the eldest son of intelligent parents, the second child of a family of seven. He has always been a bright and intelligent boy, quick at games, and in no way inferior to others of his age. His great difficulty has been – and is now – his inability to learn to read.”
1900
James Hinshelwood finds another case that fits the bill that we can find in his first paper on ‘word-blindness’ – describing a ‘deficiency of the visual memory for words’.
“A boy, aged 10 years, was brought to me by his father on Jan. 8th, 1900, to see the reason of his great difficulty in learning to read. The boy had been at school for three years, and had got on well with every subject except reading. He was apparently a bright and in every respect an intelligent boy… It was soon evident, however, on careful examination that the difficulty in learning to read was due not to any lowering of the visual acuity, but to some congenital deficiency of the visual memory for words.”
1925
Research on dyslexia waned throughout the interbellum period in the UK, but over in the US it was becoming a hot topic in both medicine and education. Samuel Torrey Orton, a neuropathologist from the State University of Iowa, presented his first paper on ‘word-blindness’ to the annual meeting of the American Neurological Association in Washington. He explored the works of Kerr, Kussmaul, Hinshelwood and Morgan, but theorised that the roots of dyslexia-based literacy difficulties lay in a ‘lack of cerebral dominance’. His hypothesis was proved incorrect, but it was key in the progress of shifting the discussion of dyslexia’s aetiology towards a model based in cognitive development.
1948-9
The International Dyslexia Association – then called the Orton Society – was set up in the US by Samuel Torrey Orton’s wife, June Orton, with the intention of promoting a wider understanding of dyslexia and helping people with dyslexia find support and understanding.
1949
Research conducted under the French paediatric specialist Clement Launay made some links between dyslexia and the dynamics of sight, exploring the differences between reading and spelling, and highlighting why some people with dyslexia are able to mirror-read and mirror-write.
1962
The London Word Blind Centre for Dyslexic Children was set up in 1962, founded by the Invalid Children’s Aid Association under the guidance of Dr. Alfred White Franklin. It was set up with the intention of not only functioning as a clinic and an advisory service for children who were struggling with their literacy, but also as a research centre and advocacy programme for the fact that dyslexia actually existed. The centre shut down in 1972, but it achieved a lot during its short time in action, and helped legitimate the diagnosis of dyslexia and foster an understanding of it as a genuine condition to be supported and understood.
1962
This year also saw the first recorded use of the word ‘dyslexia’ in UK parliament in an address by Mr. Henry Brewis, MP for Galloway, to Sir Edward Boyle, the Conservative Minister for Education. Brewis asked what special facilities were available for the teaching of children who were diagnosed with ‘dyslexia or word-blindness’, and enquired as to how they were to be supported within classrooms by their own teachers if they didn’t have access to specialist dyslexia-friendly education institutions.
1970
In the UK, the named Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act makes a passing reference to dyslexia – although it’s a very small thing, this actually helped further the idea of dyslexia as not only a valid diagnosis, but one that was widespread enough to be mentioned by name in a government act.
1971-5
The early 1970s was a hotbed for dyslexia research and publications, as well as the formation of many advisory services and associations that still exist today. Following the publication of two seminal works on dyslexia – Macdonald Critchley’s The Dyslexic Child and Sandhya Naidoo’s Specific Dyslexia – the word ‘dyslexia’ came into common usage, and the idea of specific issues with reading that were not in any way related to behaviour and intelligence began to take a hold in many countries across the globe. The early part of the decade also saw the formation of The Helen Arkell Dyslexia Association, The Dyslexia Institute, The British Dyslexia Association and the Dyslexia Clinic at St. Bart’s Hospital in London.
1985-95
The development of neuroimaging technologies during the late 1980s and early 1990s enabled dyslexia research to make significant advances, revealing the neural signature of ‘normal’ adult reading and phonological processing. Brain imaging studies done during this period also managed to characterise the anomalous patterns of neuronal activation associated with reading and phonological processing in adults with persistent or compensated developmental dyslexia, and a better understanding of the dyslexic brain was formed medically.
1987
The European Dyslexia Association was formed following a conference in Brussels on the subject of developmental dyslexia. It’s a non-governmental umbrella association that brings together 27 dyslexia associations from all over Europe, from The Netherlands to Norway. It aim is to create a platform and a voice for people with dyslexia, and support the development of national and regional organisations for people with literacy differences, and runs an annual summer school for dyslexia researchers from all over the world.
1989
1989 saw the genesis of the Dyslexia Association of Singapore, by then-President of the Rotary Club of Raffles City and Dr. Jimmy Daruwalla. Today it’s a world-class organisation that helps people with dyslexia achieve, and special education professionals feel empowered and capable to help people with special educational needs fulfil their potential.
1996
In 1996, the Maharashtra Dyslexia Association was set up as a committed body to secure the rights of students with dyslexia to an appropriate education. It was set up by a group of parents and professionals with a view to fostering greater awareness of dyslexia and literacy differences within the general public and the education system, and advocating the rights of dyslexic students everywhere.
1999
A hybrid study between universities in the UK and in Japan suggested that any language where orthography-to-phonology mapping is transparent, or opaque, or any language whose orthographic unit representing sound is coarse (i.e. at a whole character or word level) should not produce a high incidence of dyslexia, and that orthography can influence dyslexic symptoms. It’s thought that this is why we find a higher percentage of people who struggle with their dyslexia symptoms under some written language systems, and not so much under others.
2002
2002 saw the first National Dyslexia Awareness Month celebrated in the UK! It quickly caught on, and became a catch-all event for several other dyslexia days and dyslexia weeks that were happening all over the world, especially in the USA and Germany.
2008-9
The Rose Review was an independent group appointed by the British government to make recommendations on the identification and teaching of children with dyslexia. Headed by Sir Jim Rose, it explored what could be done for children and young people with literacy differences, and gave us one of the best modern definitions of dyslexia that’s still in use today:
“Dyslexia is a learning difficulty that primarily affects the skills involved in accurate and fluent word reading and spelling. Characteristic features of dyslexia are difficulties in phonological awareness, verbal memory and verbal processing speed. Dyslexia occurs across the range of intellectual abilities. Co-occurring difficulties may be seen in aspects of language, motor co-ordination, mental calculation, concentration and personal organisation, but these are not, by themselves, markers of dyslexia.”
2011
This year saw the foundation of several major dyslexia institutions and organisations all over the world! 2011 saw Dyslexia Organisation Kenya, The May Center for Learning and Dyslexia School Search come into being, and start their good work bringing dyslexia to the forefront of the educational conversation.
2015
The US Congress recognises October as Dyslexia Awareness Month. This allows many more schools and organisations to be aware of the importance of changing the narrative around dyslexia and coming together to raise awareness and celebrate.
2019
Our first year of Going Red! Succeed With Dyslexia worked closely with our friends at Code Read in Australia, Mark it Read in Canada, The Dyslexia Association of Singapore and The Maharashtra Dyslexia Association to spread the Go Red message. We rocked red tees, danced in front of buildings lit up in red and sparked incredible conversions surrounding dyslexia (and other learning disabilities too!). It’s been a whirlwind couple of years, but we’re excited to say that 2021 is going to be bigger and better and more creative than ever before – so find out how you can Get Involved today!
