Dyslexia and Special Education

There has always been a question as to whether dyslexia is real and whether it qualifies a student for special education and related services. The answer to the question of whether a diagnosis of dyslexia qualifies a student for special education services is no. But, dyslexia is often the underlying reason for a student to meet the eligibility criteria of Learning Disabilities.

Is it important to diagnose dyslexia? The answer to this is YES - ABSOLUTELY! If Individual Education Plan (IEP) teams are to develop an IEP for a student who qualifies for services based on a discrepancy between reading and intelligence - it is important to rule in or out whether the student's inadequate reading achievement issue is related to a form of dyslexia. How can an IEP team develop an appropriate educational plan if they have not identified the root of the reading problem? How can they develop strategies if they don't know why the student is not learning to read?

This is analogous to a physician treating and trying to cure an appendicitis attack by recommending a healthy diet. A physician would be strung up by her toes if she approached her practice of medicine with this sort of "off the cuff" methodology. This - try it and see approach - could result in death. Not a good approach. It seems many IEP teams though may use the same approach. They take a try it and see posture and what happens is the critical learning time, related to brain development, is lost and students get further and further behind because of inadequate diagnosis and instruction, not intelligence.

The underlying psychological processes, that have to be intact for a student to learn to read, are quite complicated and most often are not taught to aspiring teachers in their training programs. To the defense of teachers and teacher training programs, there is not enough time in an undergraduate program to teach a student everything they need to know to be effective in practicing the art and science of instruction.