Stealth Dyslexia

by Brock Eide MD MA and Fernette Eide MD

         When you read the word dyslexia, what's the first thing that pops into your head?  If you're like most people, you'll probably think of a reading disorder.  That response is understandable, considering the way dyslexia is spoken or written of by many experts.  For example, in 2003 the International Dyslexia Association defined dyslexia as:  "a specific learning disability...characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities...problems in reading comprehension, and reduced reading experience..." 

Yet reading difficulties are just one of the many neurologically-based manifestations of dyslexia.  Dyslexia is also frequently associated with difficulties with handwriting, oral language, math, motor planning and coordination, organization, sequencing, orientation to time, focus and attention, right-left orientation, spatial perception, auditory and visual processing, eye movement control, and memory.  In fact, in our practice, we often see children who are struggling academically due to difficulties that are clearly dyslexia-related, yet who show age appropriate--and in many cases even superior--reading skills.  Because of their apparently strong reading skills, most of these children have never been identified as dyslexic, or given the help they needed to overcome either their academic difficulties. 

We have found this to be an especially common problem among intellectually gifted children, because such children are able to use strong higher-order language skills to compensate for the low-level deficits in auditory and visual processing that cause the reading problems in dyslexia.  As a result, they are able to read with relatively good comprehension.  In fact, this is such a common presentation in our clinic, that we have given it it's own name:  stealth dyslexia. 

Children with stealth dyslexia share three things in common:  1) characteristic dyslexic difficulties with word processing and written output; 2) findings on neurological and neuropsychological testing consistent with the auditory, visual, language, and motor processing deficits characteristic of dyslexia; and, 3) reading skills that appear to fall within the normal or even superior range for children their age, at least on silent reading comprehension.  In addition, many will show a family history of dyslexia, and/or a history of early reading difficulties greater than would be expected for a child with their obvious strengths in oral language.  Let's look at the problems experienced by children with stealth dyslexia in a bit more detail. 
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