ABSTRACT
The basic clinical typology of acquired disorders of reading and writing is now reasonably well established. Likewise, testing for the presence of these primary forms is a reasonably straightforward matter; a good preliminary diagnosis can usually be established ‘at the bedside’, with minimum ‘apparatus’ and expenditure of time. These remarks do not imply that all problems have been solved. New discoveries will undoubtedly continue to be made: a case in point is a recent report of acquired dysgraphia with selective impairment on writing vowels (Cubelli, 1991). Similarly, arguments continue over the theoretical interpretation of the patterns of disorder observed (Humphreys and Evett, 1985), the controversy now fuelled by the rapid development of connectionist models of reading (Hinton and Shallice, 1991).
