Language disorders: A problem with auditory processing?

Dyslexia is commonly described as a disorder manifested by difficulties in learning to read and spell, despite adequate intelligence and conventional instruction. It is often diagnosed on the basis of a discrepancy between measures of reading ability and other cognitive skills, and is said to occur in 4–7% of children [1]. Explanations for dyslexia fall into three main categories. Perhaps the most popular current thinking among scientists ascribes dyslexia to an underlying deficit in the representation and processing of information about speech sounds, typically referred to as ‘phonological processing’ [1]. A deficit in phonological processing is reflected in poor performance in tasks such as reading non-words (which requires knowledge of letterto-sound mappings), repeating back nonsense words presented auditorily, in judging whether words rhyme and breaking up words into their component sounds. In this view the core deficit is seen to be linguistic, as it applies specifically to an aspect of language processing.