256 Chapter 31
Interventions for SRD
Children and adolescents with SRD are all too often thought of as lacking
in intelligence or motivation by their parents or teachers. These views will
tend to aggravate the poor self-image generated by repeated failures at
academic tasks. Informing teachers, parents and the affected individual
that the reading problems cannot be explained by low intelligence or
inadequate effort can have a major impact for good, fostering attitudes that
are both more realistic and more positive. Since some parents think that
dyslexia is a sign of being particularly gifted, it is important to avoid the
opposite error of fostering unrealistically high expectations, particularly if
the individual is of average or below average intelligence. Listing famous
people with dyslexia is not necessarily helpful.
It should be possible to provide most children and adolescents with
SRD with adequate extra help for their reading and spelling within a
mainstream school. In severe cases, and when the literacy difficulties are
an insuperable block to academic progress in all other subjects, placement
in a special unit or school may be helpful. Some schools specialise just
in ‘dyslexia’ while others cater for a range of learning problems, includ-
ing SRD.
Historically, most interventions to improve reading resulted in short-
term benefits but no lasting gains. More recent interventions, combining
reading instruction with intensive work on phonological awareness and
motivation training, seem more promising. Increasing parental involve-
ment in their children’s reading can be beneficial.
Prognosis of SRD
It is unusual for children and adolescents with SRD to catch up entirely
and many fall increasingly far behind, not because they are losing skills
but because they make less progress each year than their normal peers.
The prognosis for reading is improved by high IQ and an advantaged
socio-economic background. Because their academic difficulties persist
(with spelling problems often being even more persistent than reading
problems), individuals with SRD typically end up with poor school quali-
fications even if they have no associated behavioural problems. As a result
of their poorer qualifications and continuing problems with literacy skills,
they are more likely than their peers to have manual jobs in adult life.
Psychiatric accompaniments of reading disorders
Many studies have shown that SRD is fairly strongly associated with
ADHD, anxiety, depression, disruptive behavioural disorders and juvenile
delinquency. Some of these links appear direct and others indirect. Thus,
the link between SRD and anxiety seems direct – being expected to
read when you have SRD is a stressful experience. By contrast, the link
between SRD and behavioural problems seems indirect, being mediated by
ADHD (or perhaps specifically by the inattentive rather than over-activity
component of ADHD).