Writing and dyslexia--an historical analysis.
Writing was devised by man, and an historical survey shows that is gradually became perfected over 3500 yr towards increasing phonetisation and simplification. It is postulated that this development and the characteristics of the perfected alphabetical scripts indicate a process adaptive to man's linguistic faculties. The exceptional forms of writing, such as Chinese, remained out of reach of the masses of the people. The hypothesis is put forward that the same process might be maladaptive to a minority of children deficient in the requisite linguistic abilities: in a literate society they would suffer from disorders of reading.
D002648:Child; D004410:Dyslexia / Q000266:history*; D049671:History, 18th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049690:History, Ancient; D049691:History, Medieval; D006801:Humans; D014956:Writing