ABSTRACT
The history of dyslexia research comprises a series of successes as well as ongoing challenges. A remarkable expansion of our knowledge, spanning the fields of genetics, neurobiology, neurology, cognitive neuroscience, and education, has taken place since the first conference of the Extraordinary Brain series was inaugurated in Florence, Italy, almost 20 years ago. As the published volume from the Como Conference shows, we can say at this juncture that among those remarkable findings, there exists today for the condition known as developmental dyslexia at least one plausible known pathway between a genetic mutation and an abnormal behavior often associated with the diagnosis, including a rough description of the intervening neural structures involved. This is indeed a remarkable achievement that derives its strength mainly from cross-level approaches converging on the solution of the dyslexia problem. In the following pages, I will summarize relevant findings that lead to the above optimism, as well as bring up some still unanswered questions and remaining challenges.
