At the first World Dyslexia Forum, UNESCO, Paris 2010, a key agenda was the reporting and dissemination of best practice in dyslexia identification and intervention across the six UN language regions.
In this round table panel, four years later, we will discuss both language-specific and language-general advances in knowledge, as well as factors that have acted as obstacles to progress.
Language-specific advances include a continued move away from Anglo-centric views of reading. Dr. Cheng-Lai will discuss advances in our understanding of dyslexia in Chinese languages, where morphological and orthographic awareness are as important to consider as the phonological awareness issues reported in alphabetic scripts.
Dr. Thomson will discuss language-general advances – these include our understandings of how the digitization of text may be impacting who manifests with reading disabilities, and how these difficulties manifest.
Dr. Grigorenko, using Russian as an example, will comment on the role of translational science in the field of reading and the task of connecting research and practice.
Finally, in terms of obstacles to progress, Dr. Adabzi/Dr. Sanchez will discuss how, despite initiatives such as Education for All, a lack of understanding around the basic cognitive underpinnings of reading is stymying attempts at universal primary literacy.
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