Reading disabilities that appear suddenly in older children may be overlooked, finds a recent study. Troubles with reading and comprehension typically are diagnosed when students are beginning to read in the first few years of school. This work, however, finds that reading problems can also crop up rapidly in the fourth and fifth grades. Students who have scored well on reading tests in the primary grades may find their performance dropping after the third grade.
Researchers from Haskins Laboratories in Connecticut and Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania identified a group of students with undetected reading difficulties. These students had not been identified in ordinary reading tests, which screen children for disabilities when they are thought to be most susceptible. A group of 161 students from 12 elementary schools in Philadelphia participated in the study; 31 of the students developed reading difficulties after third grade.
A third of these late emerging reading disabled students could be considered dyslexic: they showed strong comprehensive skills but they had difficulties with word recognition. Another third of the students showed signs of poor reading comprehension but strong word recognition, which is rarely seen in children who develop reading disorders earlier in life. The final third showed both slow reading comprehension and trouble with reading and spelling.
