Reading disorders: Strategies for recognition and management

Conclusion My emphasis on linguistic factors and sense of competence as exciting areas for clinical research reflects personal interest and in no way is intended to demean paradigms based on information processing or hemispheric specialization, which are equally promising models. Indeed, I would hope a number of models would be pursued in parallel, best of all in the same patients so that we might better establish whether they cluster together or identify diverse groups. There will, of course, be practical limits, both to the competence of any team of examiners and to the durability of any group of subjects in tolerating extended test sessions. In my view, the most meaningful research will be tied to clinical trials of the remedial methods suggested by research findings, first in the hope of benefitting the child, second in order to provide a further test of hypotheses. There is no other way of beginning the task of developing new linguistic and psychological assessment tools than by exploring their utility with clinical and control groups. But once reliable and valid methods are at hand, it is essential that they be employed epidemiologically and longitudinally on stratified samples of a school population reappraised at appropriate intervals. Referred patients and cross-sectional studies simply will not suffice to provide a valid analysis of the distribution of reading problems, of their natural history, and of their response to remediation. It is high time that we began to think in these terms and to pool efforts to make such studies possible. Presented at the 29th Annual Conference of the Orton Society, Minneapolis, November 1978.