UNDERSTANDING
DYSLEXIA
HISTORY
The interest in people with learning disability began in 1878 with Adolph Kussmaul, a German neurologist. He specialized in adults with reading problems. He noticed that some of his patients could not read properly and regularly used words in the wrong order. He was the first to introduce the term 'word blindness' to describe their difficulties.
In 1887, a German ophthalmologist, Rudolf Berlin was the first to use the word 'dyslexia' instead of 'word blindness.' Dyslexia comes from the Greek meaning 'difficulty with words.'The first case of developmental dyslexia was reported by Pringle-Morgan in the British Medical Journal on the 7th of November 1896.
In 1925, an American neurologist, Dr. Samuel T. Orton proposed the first theory of how specific reading difficulties arose. Orton places a great part of his study on the dominance of one side of the brain. He believed that the problem in dyslexia was one of visual perception and visual memory.
Many more studies were made, but in 1939 Dr. Alfred Struss and R. Heinz Werner published their findings that children had a wider range with learning difficulties. Their work emphasized the variety of these problems and the importance of individually assessing each child's particular educational needs.
Credits to: "Dyslexia Awareness." Dyslexia Awareness. Web. 6 Dec. 2015.
Siegel, Linda. "Perspectives on Dyslexia." Paediatrics & Child Health. Pulsus Group Inc. Web. 11 Nov. 2015.