In the previous chapter we looked at how we use and understand language, now let’s look at the ways that people lose language and also experience language difficulties of various kinds. These aren’t the normal errors and mistakes we’ve already discussed, but are the result of disability, disease, disorder, brain injury, and other factors that can affect speech use and understanding and further impair the ability to read and write. In the US alone, between five to ten percent of the population have various types of communication disorders. The figures are even higher for learning disorders such as dyslexia. All in all, this amounts to millions of people who live with language differences. This chapter discusses how both developmental and acquired disorders affect language processing and production.

How likely it is that literacy, as we have known it, will be preserved in the years ahead? Or, perhaps the question has already shifted, from whether the written medium will fade to how soon that disappearance might occur. Generative artificial intelligence and related technology can support the transition toward new forms of literacy that evolve alongside emerging media. Large language models, in particular, may help preserve some of the cognitive and communicative advantages associated with “traditional” book-based language. In this way, technology could shape future media landscapes, keeping the perks of being a bookworm while softening some of the downsides of newer formats.

Spoken and written language are likely to share many aspects of how they are represented in the human mind. For instance, it would be highly inefficient for the brain to store the meaning of words separately for its spoken and written forms. Instead, shared representations across modalities allow for interaction between them, meaning that the effects of written language can directly influence spoken language processing. As a result, predictive learning that occurs during reading naturally transfers to spoken language. Knowledge accumulated through reading, along with the predictive behavior it fosters, can thus directly support prediction in speech as well.

This chapter establishes the foundation for the book by challenging the traditional view of dyslexia as merely a reading disorder in childhood. It frames dyslexia as a persistent neurodevelopmental syndrome that affects working memory. Drawing on scientific evidence and decades of diagnostic experience, the authors argue for a shift from superficial behavioural definitions to a deeper understanding of dyslexia’s neurological basis. They critique circular definitions focused solely on reading difficulties and emphasise the importance of distinguishing between skills (learned behaviours) and abilities (underlying cognitive capacities). The chapter also critiques pseudoscience and postmodern trends that prioritise anecdotal or ’lived’ experiences over falsifiable, empirical research. It calls for better integration of findings across disciplines to improve support and interventions across the lifespan. By placing dyslexia within a broader cognitive and developmental framework, the authors aim to clarify its impact on life beyond education and propose working-memory inefficiency as a core deficit that explains both academic and functional challenges.

Describe how children can take different paths in development and reach similar destinations; understand the developmental differences between children as a set of strengths and challenges that are highly sensitive to environmental context; explore how events in children’s lives can trigger a cascade of later consequences.

Abstract: Anne Young grew up in Winnetka, Illinois. Like Pippi Longstocking, she was a rambunctious child who defied her mother’s expectations to be her doll. Anne experimented, explored, climbed trees and played in the mud with the boys. She did not get the attention she needed from her parents and, as a result, dealt with a lot of anger, which manifested physically, sometimes throwing herself down the stairs for attention. Anne did not feel like the typical girl. Many of her friends in elementary school were boys. At an early age, Anne was exposed to illness through her aunt, who was paralyzed from the waist down, and her mother, who developed polio when Anne was four. These determined her fascination with disorderly movements. From elementary into high school, Anne excelled at sports such as basketball. Her main interests were art and science. After visiting the University of Chicago School of Medicine to see a demonstration of immunity in mice, she thought she would never become a doctor because she fainted dead away at the sight of a large needle. However, she continued to involve herself in medical-related opportunities, such as volunteering at the Chicago State Mental Hospital, where she entertained patients locked in the male ward.

This chapter presents the varied types of attention deficits that are observed in different special populations. These provide evidence for the importance of attention in many aspects of our lives, and this chapter explains how studies of these patients continues to motivate and shape much of the neuroscience research that will be covered in subsequent chapters. Patients suffering from unilateral neglect syndrome, subsequent to brain lesions, have revealed a network of temporo-parietal and ventral frontal regions, lateralized largely to the right hemisphere, that is critical for disengaging and reorienting attention. These patients also provide evidence for the distinction between space-based versus object-based attention. Damage to subcortical structures in the thalamus and superior colliculus are linked to deficits in engaging and moving attention, respectively. The history and current diagnostic criteria for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are described, along with how this disorder affects multiple processes of attention. Symptoms of ADHD and the neglect syndrome are used to introduce the concepts of executive control, the filtering of irrelevant distractors, and the balance of top-down and bottom-up influences on attention. The possibility that dysfunctional attention mechanisms may also play a role in autism, schizophrenia, and anxiety disorders is discussed.

This chapter discusses cognitive individual differences that affect learning processes and outcomes of second language. It answers broad questions such as Why do some learners seem to have such an easy time learning a second language? and Why do some learners sound like a first-language speaker but others don’t? The chapter examines how our cognitive abilities influence our learning, and how we might be able to improve our learning even if we have lower cognitive skills in some areas. Specific individual differences include general intelligence, working memory, and language learning aptitude (phonemic coding ability, grammatical sensitivity, rote memorization). The chapter then examines how cognitive individual differences mediate the impact of second language instruction, that is, aptitude–treatment interaction. The chapter includes less-investigated individual differences as well, such as neurodiversity, autism, ADHD, and dyslexia. The chapter concludes with learning strategies and pedagogical recommendations that help counter the negative impacts that cognitive individual differences have on second language learning.

The opening section of this chapter charts the history of the dyslexia construct. The distinction between scientific understandings of dyslexia (a difficulty in accurate and fluent word reading) and reading comprehension is emphasized. Different conceptions of dyslexia exist, however, and these are grouped within four categories, each of which is examined and critiqued in turn. Dyslexia 1 concerns an understanding whereby dyslexia refers to those with the most severe and persistent forms of reading. Dyslexia 2 describes the widely held view that only some struggling readers are dyslexic, and such individuals need to be identified by expert assessors using various cognitive tests. In these cases, the individual’s reading problem is often considered to be unexpected. The role of intelligence, and intelligence/reading discrepancy, as a marker of dyslexia is examined in significant detail. A Dyslexia 3 conception places emphasis on the struggling reader’s difficulty to make significant progress even when provided with high-quality intervention. Dyslexia 4 concerns the understanding that reading difficulties should be considered as only one part of a much broader dyslexic condition that may provide a number of compensatory gifts. The need to eschew unitary explanations in favor of multifactorial understandings of reading disability involving a combination of biology and environment is emphasized.

In this chapter, we explore how our brains help us read and understand written words. Imagine when you started school – you could talk, recognize some letters, and start to hear the sounds in words. These skills lay the groundwork for learning to read. Good language skills make it easier to learn to read. But heres the twist: our brains werent originally built for reading. Weve only been reading for a few thousand years, while weve been using spoken language for tens of thousands of years. So, our brains adapted to this new skill of reading. We also discuss a special part of the brain called the visual word form area that helps us recognize words. We explore how reading changes our brains and why its crucial to have both good language skills and a writing system around to help us become readers. Dyslexia, a reading difficulty, is also discussed. In simple terms, well uncover how our brains enable us to read by adapting to new cultural practices, like writing, and how they use our visual system to make reading possible.

provides high-level summaries of three research domains related to the reading of Chinese: How reading is taught and what is known about its normal development, what is known about atypical reading development (i.e., dyslexia), and what is known about the neural systems that support skilled reading. All three of these topics are discussed in relation to their counterparts in English, using the latter as a contrast to highlight similarities and differences between the reading of English versus Chinese.

Chapter 7 discusses the individual differences associated with neurodiversity that may impact how learners’ progress in a language classroom. Research findings associated with specific learning diagnoses (e.g., ADHD) and second language acquisition are also shared. Ideas for teachers to bring into their teaching practices, regardless of the neurodiversity among their learners, are detailed in the final section.

The book has combined a focus on both cognitive coping strategies and socio-emotional techniques for overcoming negative emotion. As such, the book has built on work completed for Dyslexia in Higher Education: Anxiety and Coping, but rather than aiming to raise awareness of the prevalence of anxiety and negative emotion, the book instead has focused on expanding the research undertaken on effective cognitive and emotional techniques used by dyslexic learners. This has enabled provision of a pragmatic, study skills development book for the purpose of supporting students with dyslexia to deal more effectively with their study tasks and learning experiences whilst at university. Consequently, the book’s main themes have focused on the presentation of strategies for overcoming barriers prevalent for the dyslexic learner both cognitively and emotionally. These have included ways in which technology can be utilised, making learning multisensory, applying practicality to study tasks and exemplifying the dyslexic learners featured in the book favourite ways of studying to make learning enjoyable. These have been presented with the aim of improving metacognition and metacognitive awareness, helping to reduce scotopic sensitivity, and ultimately have been intended to help the reader to cope with academic life cognitively and emotionally.