Is dyslexia a fictional condition?

Labour MP Graham Stringer and sparked quite a debate by describing dyslexia as a “cruel fiction” invented by big wigs in the education system to cover up the fact that they can’t teach very well.

The charity Dyslexia Action hit back with a statement and claimed that six million people in the UK suffer from it. To be honest though I’m not really convinced such a figure really helps their case. For example the facts don’t really stack up if this figure is true and you take Mr Stringer’s point that…

“If dyslexia really existed then countries as diverse as Nicaragua and South Korea would not have been able to achieve literacy rates of nearly 100%.”

He also makes the interesting point that given there is so much finance support for the condition, it essentially creates an insentive to be bad at reading and writing. Personally I’m not convinced this actually much of an affect but it is certainly plausible that it does.

For further reading you may want to take a glance at the BBC’s coverage and Mr Stringer’s column itself.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 14th, 2009 at 5:24 pm and is filed under Religion & Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.