Dyslexia the invisible, treatable disorder: The story of Einstein's ninja turtles

In this longitudinal, multiple case study, I describe and compare the early development, instructional history, repeated administrations of a test bat tery, and response to instructional intervention for seven boys (in third t o at time of intervention), who were brain imaged prior to intervention and found to differ from controls in brain chemical activation during a phonol ogical task. The instructional intervention was phonologically driven readi ng instruction in a science/reading workshop. At follow-up, phonological sk ills (phonological manipulation, phonological memory, and phonological deco ding) had improved compared to initial assessment, but the boys were better at silent reading comprehension than oral reading, and had rate impairment s and considerable difficulties with writing skills (handwriting automatici ty, spelling, and speed of composing). Based on recent research on genetic phenotype (language markers) and on early intervention, a case is made that dyslexia should be diagnosed early in schooling, on the basis or markers f or deficient language processes and response to early intervention, so that appropriate instruction can be instituted early and continued throughout s chooling as long as necessary. Dyslexia is a developmental disorder that ma nifests in different ways at different developmental stages, initially as d ifficulty in learning letters and letter-sound correspondence, next in lear ning to read words accurately, and finally in impaired reading rate and wri tten expression skills (handwriting automaticity, spelling, and composition al fluency).