Causes of reading disorders

In addition to the causes of reading disorders mentioned above, there are other performance deficits that can be the cause of reading disorders or reading weaknesses. In addition to severe visual disorders, hearing disorders and speech disorders, the following 14 disorders caused reading disorders in our controlled studies (Werth 2007, 2018, Klische 2007):

List of all known causes

  1. The word or word segment to be read is not fixed in the correct place.
  2.  The word or word segment to be read is fixed too short.
  3. The individual letters of the word or word segment to be read are recognised. However, the child takes too long or is unable to recall the sound sequence associated with the letter sequence.
  4. Only small word segments can be recognised because the field of attention cannot be extended any further. However, the child tries to read larger word segments.
  5. Only small word segments can be read because the ability to recognise several letters simultaneously is too weak. However, the field of attention can be extended sufficiently.
  6. Too large jumps in gaze are made when reading. As a result, letters, word segments or whole words are often overlooked. The child often guesses the word to be read because it has only partially recognised the word or has not recognised it at all.
  7. The visual performance inhibited during the gaze jump recovers too slowly after the gaze jump to read the now fixated word or word segment.
  8. The child cannot concentrate its attention sufficiently on reading a word or word segment. They are too distracted by the text around the word or word segment they are reading.
  9. The child compulsively keeps looking at words or word segments that have already been read correctly to check whether they have read correctly. This prevents fluent reading.
  10. The child can read, but cannot grasp the content of what they have read. They have to focus all their attention on the reading process and can therefore no longer pay attention to the content.
  11. The child can read, but cannot memorise the meaning of the words read for long enough. As a result, they are unable to grasp the content of a text. This performance weakness is caused by a reduced memory for the words read.
  12. Words read cannot be linked to a meaning or the meaning cannot be recalled quickly enough from memory. This almost exclusively affects children who read a text that is not written in their native language.
  13. Pronounceable pseudo-words can be read correctly. However, words in an existing language are often read incorrectly because the child cannot recall the pronunciation rules quickly enough from memory and/or apply them to the pronunciation of the word seen. This almost exclusively affects children who read a text that is not written in their native language.
  14. Although words are correctly analysed by the visual system, the sounds of the individual letters are correctly recalled from memory and the word can be pronounced correctly, the sound sequence of the entire word cannot be formed correctly when the word is presented visually.