The paper relates early work of Samuel Orton on cerebral dominance to current neuropsychological concepts of laterality as reciprocal functions of the two cerebral hemispheres. The genetic-cultural perspectives of laterality and functional asymmetry in relation to learning disorders are discussed. (Author/CL)

The relationship between neurological impairment or brain damage and severe reading disability is investigated. Symptoms and causes of neurological impairment are listed, and reading disability theories are discussed. Smith and Carrigan offer a neurochemical explanation of reading disability based on synaptic transmission problems. Orton,…

Research is reviewed concerning the current state of knowledge about normal hemispheric specialization; distinctions among such terms as dominance, laterality, and lateralization; and models of abnormal cerebral organization in dyslexic children. The question of dyslexic subtypes is undertaken along such dimensions as handedness, eyedness, and…

In the neurolinguistic approach to the study of the acquisition of reading and writing, language may be used to express thoughts and intellectual attitudes as well as emotions and emotional attitudes. Experimental studies and clinical data suggest that grammatical rules for spoken language predominantly rely on the left hemisphere of the brain,…

Five theories were tested relating to the suspected connection between organic brain dysfunction and poor reading, or dyslexia. Results failed to support the poor lateralization, right hemisphere, global, imbalance theories. Among juvenile offenders, poor reading appears to relate to left-hemisphere dysfunction. (Author)