Evidence map›Paper›PMID 29621138›Full record

ArticleBrain sciences2018

Is Dyslexia a Brain Disorder?

Athanassios Protopapas, Rauno Parrila

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Brain sciences, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
26citing papers in PubMed, 2 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

26 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

  1. Visual and Oculomotor Function in Developmental Dyslexia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Ophthalmic & physiological optics : the journal of the British College of Ophthalmic Opticians (Optometrists) · 2026
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  5. Dyslexia, the Amsterdam Way.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors.

Athanassios ProtopapasDepartment of Special Needs Education, University of Oslo, Oslo 0318, Norway. athanasios.protopapas@isp.uio.no.ORCID 0000-0002-7285-8845
Rauno ParrilaDepartment of Educational Studies, Macquarie University, Sydney 2109, Australia. rauno.parrila@mq.edu.au.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Specific word reading difficulty, commonly termed ‘developmental dyslexia’, refers to the low end of the word reading skill distribution but is frequently considered to be a neurodevelopmental disorder. This term implies that brain development is thought to be disrupted, resulting in an abnormal and dysfunctional brain. We take issue with this view, pointing out that there is no evidence of any obvious neurological abnormality in the vast majority of cases of word reading difficulty cases. The available relevant evidence from neuroimaging studies consists almost entirely of correlational and group-differences studies. However, differences in brains are certain to exist whenever differences in behavior exist, including differences in ability and performance. Therefore, findings of brain differences do not constitute evidence for abnormality; rather, they simply document the neural substrate of the behavioral differences. We suggest that dyslexia is best viewed as one of many expressions of ordinary ubiquitous individual differences in normal developmental outcomes. Thus, terms such as “dysfunctional” or “abnormal” are not justified when referring to the brains of persons with dyslexia.

Indexed as

braindyslexiafMRIneurodevelopmental disorderneuroimagingneurological disorderreading difficulty

Identifiers

PMID29621138
PMCPMC5924397

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.