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Brain Sciences
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Current Advances in Developmental Dyslexia
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Current Advances in Developmental Dyslexia

A special issue of Brain Sciences (ISSN 2076-3425). This special issue belongs to the section "Neurolinguistics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (25 February 2026) | Viewed by 3793

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. John F. Stein

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK
Interests: visual guidance of movement; magnocellular timing systems; cerebellum; visual dyslexia; blue or yellow filters; omega 3s
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The concept of developmental dyslexia has become rather controversial in recent years, as its definition has lost clarity. The importance of training children in phonics has perhaps been overemphasized, and the crucial role of the visual processes that precede children’s ability to gain phonological awareness seems to have been been forgotten.  There is little doubt today that learning to recognize and sequence letters visually long precedes children’s ability to grasp phonics.  This fact was discovered nearly 50 years ago, and subsequent advances in neuroimaging, neuropsychology and molecular genetics have provided solid neuroscientific evidence for its truth.

In this Special Issue we hope to present an overview of these recent advances in a way which will contribute to greater understanding of how children develop the neural pathways to learn to read. In doing so, we hope to help teachers improve their ability to teach them, and demonstrate that neurodiversity is not as damaging or threatening as some argue, because the gene variants that underlie it would not be so common if they did not confer some benefits to humanity.

Therefore, we seek contributions to this issue, whether fresh research, new ruminations on remaining controversies or frank disagreements.  Importantly for the progression of neuroscience, opinions regarding the way forward differ, and so we are happy to include the views of people who believe that the current enthusiasm for the concept of neurodiversity is thoroughly mistaken and should be treated with scepticism.

Prof. Dr. John F. Stein
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Brain Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • developmental dyslexia
  • neuroimaging
  • neuropsychology
  • molecular genetics

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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15 pages, 1592 KB  
Article
Speech Sound Production in Adults with Dyslexia
by Sabrina Turker, Natalia Kartushina and Narly Golestani
Brain Sci. 2026, 16(5), 448; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci16050448 - 23 Apr 2026
Viewed by 340
Abstract
Background: Dyslexia is a reading disorder that is associated with phonological processing and awareness difficulties. However, little is known about phonetic production in dyslexia. Whereas individual differences in speech sound perception were linked to native and foreign speech sound production in typical readers, [...] Read more.
Background: Dyslexia is a reading disorder that is associated with phonological processing and awareness difficulties. However, little is known about phonetic production in dyslexia. Whereas individual differences in speech sound perception were linked to native and foreign speech sound production in typical readers, this remains to be explored in dyslexia. Given the phonetic processing deficits frequently encountered in dyslexia, we aimed to pinpoint potential differences in the acoustic realization of native phonemic production in adults with dyslexia. Methods: Ten adults with dyslexia and ten age-matched typical readers produced 24 native-language minimal voiced–voiceless word pairs across three places of articulation (labial, dental, velar) in a reading task. Acoustic analyses addressed phonemic category size, between-category distance, and voice onset time (VOT). Pseudoword reading performance served as an index of phonological decoding ability. Results: For category size, we observed a trend-level group-by-type interaction (p = 0.059, η2 = 0.04): both groups showed larger category sizes for voiced than voiceless consonants, but this difference was numerically larger in typical readers. Between-category distance showed a marginal group effect (p = 0.089, η2 = 0.14), with larger differences between categories in dyslexia. VOT showed the expected effect of voicing, but no group differences. Conclusions: Our results indicate broadly preserved speech production in dyslexia, alongside subtle differences in category separation and size in dyslexia, marked by considerable inter-individual variability. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Current Advances in Developmental Dyslexia)
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17 pages, 690 KB  
Article
Heterogeneity in English as a Foreign Language: Skills Among Norwegian 6th Graders with Dyslexia—The Impact of Language Comprehension and Processing Profiles
by Turid Magnhild Helland, Randi Kaasa and Wenche Andersen Helland
Brain Sci. 2025, 15(11), 1230; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci15111230 - 15 Nov 2025
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Abstract
Background: English as a first foreign language (EFL) is often difficult for students with dyslexia. This study maps a broad range of EFL verbal and literacy skills in 6th graders with dyslexia compared to a control group. Methods: Participants were 127 controls (CON) [...] Read more.
Background: English as a first foreign language (EFL) is often difficult for students with dyslexia. This study maps a broad range of EFL verbal and literacy skills in 6th graders with dyslexia compared to a control group. Methods: Participants were 127 controls (CON) and 60 students with dyslexia (DYS), split into dys+ and dys− by their comprehension scores. They were tested with “The English 2 Dyslexia Test” containing seven subtests within three domains: Sentences, Pragmatics, and Literacy. The data were analysed in Part 1: domains and groups, and in Part 2: linguistic skills and spelling by groups. Results: Part 1. CON scored better than DYS on all tests. However, the differences between the two subgroups, dys+ and dys−, were larger than expected. Dys+ scored in line with CON on several tests, while dys− scored below CON on all tests and lower than dys+ on all except for spelling. Part 2. Minor differences were seen between CON and dys+ in linguistic skills, and both CON and dys+ scored higher than dys−. Spelling was scored by the number of graphemes. CON scored higher than both dys+ and dys−, with no difference between the subgroups. Conclusions: The results were discussed in accordance with neurocognitive theories of the auditory and visual timing systems. The overall low scores in dys− were mainly attributed to auditory processing problems, while the specific low spelling scores in dys+ were mainly attributed to visual processing problems. More research is needed on how the behavioural patterns in the two dyslexia subgroups relate to neural correlates in the meeting between EFL and different L1 language typologies and orthographies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Current Advances in Developmental Dyslexia)
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Review

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27 pages, 4022 KB  
Review
Proprioception and Sensorimotor Regulation Across the Day–Night Cycle in Developmental Dyslexia: Toward an Embodied Perspective
by Patrick Quercia
Brain Sci. 2026, 16(4), 346; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci16040346 - 24 Mar 2026
Viewed by 1736
Abstract
Background: Sensorimotor differences have frequently been reported in children with developmental dyslexia, but are often considered secondary or comorbid to phonological deficits. Within an embodied cognition perspective, reading acquisition emerges from dynamic interactions between bodily regulation, multisensory integration, and learning-related neural plasticity. [...] Read more.
Background: Sensorimotor differences have frequently been reported in children with developmental dyslexia, but are often considered secondary or comorbid to phonological deficits. Within an embodied cognition perspective, reading acquisition emerges from dynamic interactions between bodily regulation, multisensory integration, and learning-related neural plasticity. Proprioception contributes to spatial orientation, motor coordination, and perceptual stabilization, while sleep-dependent processes play a critical role in the consolidation and automatization of cognitive and motor skills. Objectives: Building on early clinical observations, including the hypothesis proposed by Martins da Cunha, this review explores whether variations in proprioceptive processing and sensorimotor regulation may influence multisensory stability and the conditions under which reading skills develop in some individuals with dyslexia. Methods: This narrative synthesis integrates clinical observations and experimental paradigms examining proprioceptive function in children with dyslexia, including studies conducted in our laboratory over the past two decades. These investigations address postural regulation under varying attentional demands, laboratory measures of proprioceptive acuity, visuospatial localization tasks, multisensory interactions, and exploratory observations concerning sleep–wake regulation. Results: Across studies, children with dyslexia often show differences in proprioceptive processing associated with variations in postural regulation, visuospatial stability, and multisensory tasks. Laboratory measurements suggest reduced proprioceptive acuity in some individuals, with moderate correlations observed between proprioceptive sensitivity and reading-related measures. Additional observations suggest that nocturnal physiological regulation—including respiratory dynamics and sleep architecture—may interact with daytime sensorimotor stability and attentional functioning. Conclusions: Taken together, these findings support the hypothesis that variations in sensorimotor regulation across the sleep–wake cycle may influence the stability of multisensory processing and attentional conditions relevant for reading acquisition. Within this perspective, proprioception is not proposed as an alternative explanation for dyslexia but as a complementary dimension that may contribute to the heterogeneity of dyslexic profiles. Further longitudinal and controlled studies are required to clarify the relationships between sensorimotor regulation, sleep-dependent plasticity, and learning processes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Current Advances in Developmental Dyslexia)
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