Dyslexia and Comorbid Disorders: Transdisciplinary Assessment and Treatment

Dear colleagues,

Dyslexia is the most common learning disability, affecting as many as one in five children with a range of mild, moderate and severe dyslexia. More than 70% of children in 4^th grade and 8^th grade USA public school settings do not have proficient reading skills. Likewise, dyslexia is highly prevalent in the juvenile justice, high school dropout, teenage suicide and incarcerated adult populations. In addition to the well-established evidence of a speech-language processing basis to developmental dyslexia, there are also reports of sensory motor difficulties, speech-language difficulties, ADHD, executive function difficulties, poor working memory, auditory processing and visual tracking or visual motor integration skill deficits. Recent publications question the utility of comprehensive neuropsychological evaluations that commonly screen for some of these comorbid disorders, if such comprehensive evaluations are used only for diagnosing dyslexia and not for comprehensive treatment planning. Therefore, a better understanding of the presence of co-morbid disorders that may be screened for with comprehensive neuropsychological evaluations and may contribute to treatment resistance are of increasing interest and could assist with comprehensive and transdisciplinary evidence-based interventions for dyslexia.

This Special Issue is interested in identifying established or pilot studies of comprehensive transdisciplinary approaches to the assessment and treatment of dyslexia. By identifying collaborative teams that are cross-trained within the fields of neuropsychology, speech-language pathology, and occupational therapy, then we can begin to determine new models of assessment and treatment that might lead to larger scale studies of a transdisciplinary approach to assessment and treatment and begin establishing comprehensive treatment models and outcomes. A transdisciplinary approach may inform evidence-based recommendations for the early intervention and treatment of dyslexia in young children and guide clinicians, public health researchers and policy makers in their implementation.

The focus of this Special Issue is on how a transdisciplinary approach to assessment and treatment of dyslexia can lead to more comprehensive gains for children in terms of both early intervention/prevention and remediation. Increasing our knowledge of the transdisciplinary features of dyslexia, its assessment and its treatment will assist in developing evidence-based guidelines for children and adolescents.

This issue will include original research, pilot studies, reviews of the relationships between comorbid diagnoses with dyslexia, and theoretical models to guide transdisciplinary assessment and treatment. This can include epidemiological studies of the association between academic, speech–language, sensory motor, and neuropsychological abilities, effectiveness of transdisciplinary early intervention or remediation programs, studies examining factors associated with treatment resistance, and obstacles to implementation of evidence-based practices across a range of age, public school and private school settings.

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