What Causes Dyslexia?

What Causes Dyslexia?

There is no single ’cause’ of developmental dyslexia.

Dyslexia affects people in many different ways, from individual to individual, as do the reasons for the specific difficulties experienced.

Children learn the language and literacy skills best when they are young. If they have hearing problems (like ‘glue ear’) during this time, this can affect some children’s language abilities. Similarly, visual problems when learning to read can affect their ability to pick up reading skills. Such visual problems (e.g. unstable or blurred vision) can confuse children and make reading very difficult, but this can often be improved by viewing through yellow or blue filters. Also, many children have problems translating the letters into the sounds they stand for because they don’t hear them enough.

The fundamental cause or causes of developmental dyslexia are not fully understood and are the primary focus of our research. It is an inherited condition which appears to affect more boys than girls. Apparent differences in how the brain is wired up during development have been found in people with dyslexia. These may result from abnormalities in a particular class of ‘magnocellular’ nerve cells, possibly due to inheriting genes that make them vulnerable to immune factors during the brain’s development and deficiency of the ‘omega-3’ fatty acids EPA & DHA that are found in oily fish.

Dyslexia Research Trust (DRT)
4th October 2013