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Nature 412, 393-395 (26 July 2001) | doi:10.1038/35086683

Dyslexia: Talk of two theories

Franck Ramus

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One possible reason why people with dyslexia have problems in learning to read is that some neuronal pathways involved in vision and hearing are damaged. That theory may need to be revised.

Regardless of how intelligent they are, people with developmental dyslexia have difficulty in learning to read, a characteristic first described more than a century ago1. Dyslexia is now known to be a hereditary neurological disorder that affects a huge number of people — about 5% of the global population — but its underlying basis is still hotly debated.