ABSTRACT

Any classification of reading disability is taken into account those problems encountered by children who are backward readers and those who have a specific reading disability. One of the first researchers into reading disability was Hinshelwood who described three types of word blindness in adults which were due to damage in certain areas of the brain. Later Hermann and Norrie also equated children with a reading disability with brain damaged adults with Gerstmann's Syndrome where right-left confusion problems with finger localisation and writing problems were evident. Another development of the view that the brain of children with reading disabilities functions differently from normal children which is given by the theory of maturational lag. The best compromise for the teacher is for him or her to make an intelligent guess as to the child's areas of strength and weakness, based perhaps on observation of the child's reading with possibly a minimum of testing.