Physiological problems of reading and writing
-By Timothy Lyons
Some of the Physiological problems of reading and writing include those for reading which are known as pure alexia, and the three acquired dyslexia’s of surface dyslexia, phonological dyslexia and direct dyslexia and an inherited developmental dyslexia. Dyslexia means a deficit in reading. Pure alexia is a problem with reading words but it has no overlap with problems of writing. Damage to the right visual field that occurs harms fibers from the corpus callosum and no longer allows visual information to reach the visual cortex. Surface dyslexia is a person’s inability to read whole-words. Phonological dyslexia is the inability to read words phonetically or by sound. Direct dyslexia occurs when a person can read words but not understand what they mean (Carson & Birkett, 2017).
Problems with writing are known as dysgraphias. These dysgraphias are either phonologic or orthographic. Phonologic dysgraphia results in a person’s inability to sound out words or write them using phonetics. Orthographic dysgraphia are only able to sound words out, can write many common words but have difficulty with spelling irregular words such as “enough” which might be spelled as “enuff”. These dysgraphias are as a result of brain damage especially in the area of dorsal parietal cortex which contains information about writing movements (Carson & Birkett, 2017).
There is a close relation between the areas of the brain that deal with speaking, reading and writing. When a person suffers damage that results in aphasia, which is an inability to understand and speak words, they normally also suffer writing deficits. These deficits correspond to the type of aphasia suffered. In Broca’s aphasia which is damage to an area of the brain known as Broca’s area, when the person is unable use proper grammar in their speech, they are also unable to do so in their writing. Persons who suffer Wernicke’s aphasia, damage to an area of the brain known as Wernicke’s are, persons have difficulty understanding and speaking language. They also have that same difficulty with writing (Carson & Birkett, 2017).
References for Physiological problems of reading and writing
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