dyslexia
Pluraldyslexias
- 1A learning disability marked by ongoing difficulty with reading and writing.
A diagnosis of dyslexia in third grade finally explained his struggles with spelling.
Teachers took training to support students whose dyslexia slows their reading.
Note
A clinical name with an eye doctor behind it: the German ophthalmologist Rudolf Berlin coined it in 1887 from dys- and Greek léxis, "word", itself from légō, "to speak". Neurologists describe it as trouble recognizing written words accurately and fluently, usually rooted in phonological processing and independent of general intelligence. It is mostly uncountable (a diagnosis of dyslexia), though the plural dyslexias also occurs.
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Origin
A learned borrowing from French dyslexie and/or German Dyslexie, coined by the German ophthalmologist Rudolf Berlin in 1887, from dys- + lexis + -ia, ultimately from Ancient Greek δυσ- (dus-) plus λέξις (léxis, "word, diction"), from λέγω (légō, "to speak"). Here λέξις was taken to mean "reading," likely through a confusion of Greek λέγω ("to speak") and Latin legō ("to read").