They produce no evidence for their assertion that such damaging negative affect is a consequence rather than the cause of the ‘dyslexia’. They refer to Pumfrey and Reason (1991) who do not, in fact, make this assertion. Pumfrey and Reason produce evidence for both possibilities and are at pains to point out the equivocal nature of the evidence. They assert that ‘dyslexics’ usually show considerable, sometimes dramatic affective disturbance related to their learning difficulties, while concluding that whether affect is horse or cart has yet to be elucidated. Everyday observation, as well as intuition, tends, in fact, to back the horse. It has been my experience (and see chapter 7) that emotions and feelings are intimately involved in odd literacy difficulties and that they have usually been more cause than consequence of said difficulties.
This phenomenon is commonly observed but never appropriately remarked. You will probably have heard or read something like this more than once, for yourself: ‘I am dyslexic and for me this means I literally cannot write my own name but I can read quite well and I am now using the word processor.’ (Herrington 1995 p.7 my emphasis). It is astonishing how often ‘dyslexics’ are said to enjoy a straightforwardly usual degree of success on the word processor while experiencing ongoing difficulties with a pen. However, assembling language and spellings for word processing and for handwriting are, of course, exactly the same cognitive process; the only different is the different hardware through which the act is mediated. Word processing involves precisely the same cognitive literacy domains as handwriting does; it is simply the eventual choice of expressive tool which differs. In such a case the diagnosis must be at fault - the ‘dyslexic’ who makes ordinarily good progress on the keyboard does so because there is no such corrosive personal history or expectation of failure associated with the keyboard as there so manifestly is with pen and paper. With luck nobody has told him that he will also be ‘dyslexic’ on the keyboard, so he isn’t. The change of technologies has by-passed all that affective baggage. And, of course, if he is ‘normal’ on the keyboard, he is ‘normal’ full stop.
I will recount an anecdote which may be interesting in this context: I know a man who stammers. He is a highly intelligent, very pleasant and witty man, but he stammers so badly that he finds it almost impossible at times to make himself understood. It can take him a minute or two to get through a single sentence. However, this man is a very talented amateur actor; he regularly takes the leading role in the annual pantomime put on by the high quality local theatre group. He is given the lead because he is outstandingly entertaining not only when delivering his lines as the King of Llanastraw, or whatever he is this year, but also, and particularly, at the uproarious final performance, striding to the edge of the stage and ad-libbing with the audience to stunning effect. He invariably delivers a tour de force, sometimes at length - and he never stammers at all on stage. The show can take anything up to an hour longer than usual because of his interactions with his audience, who love every bawdy minute of it. In his ridiculous role, swathed in a stupendous costume, he commands the theatre, declaiming with perfect fluency and responding devastatingly and swiftly to the heckling rising from the seats below him. In front of exactly the same people come to worship him at the famous post-performance party a few minutes later he will be stammer-bound. Does becoming a king (as he demonstrably does) by-pass whatever trauma, whatever complicated language-associated affect, so profoundly interferes with his speech when he is merely himself?
The neurological deficit explanation of 'dyslexia' is intermittently questioned quite critically. Some researchers seek to replace a medical deficit aetiological explanation with one of different, and differently appropriate, cognitive styles. They claim that we all have radically different minds, with inborn differences of behaviours and aptitudes, rather than that some of us have apparently abnormal brains. Herrington (2001), for example, reviews the field in the context of remediation of adult 'dyslexics' in ABE. She specifically rejects the 'medical disability' view in favour of a '... different thinking/learning style' (ibid. p. 13), while still considering that '... all intractable difficulties with aspects of literacy involve some elements and degree of dyslexia.' (ibid. p.17). The ‘learning styles’ approach asserts that different people have radically different underlying cognitive styles. They approach learning, in particular, in radically different ways. The further claim is usually made - explicitly or implicitly - that these different styles are innate, are hardwired into the brain by nature (as opposed to learned during nurture). It is important to remember that these claims remain controversial and unproven, of which more a little later.