Different Perspectives on the Interface of Dyslexia and Language: Introduction to the Special LLD Issue on Dyslexia and Language

The current special issue focuses on language and literacy abilities in children, adolescents, and adults with reading disorders and developmental dyslexia, for whom the advantages of advanced language resources may not be as readily accessible as for normally reading individuals. The rich tapestry of languages, orthographies, and age groups woven in the special issue constructs an up-to-date picture of the crucial linkage between reading and spelling disability and impaired linguistic knowledge. The issue includes six articles on a Germanic language (English), two Romance languages (French and Portuguese), the Greek language (its own branch of the Indo-European languages), and Hebrew, a Semitic language, examining three different orthographies—Latin, Greek, and Hebrew scripts. From a participant’s perspective, the special issue articles trace learning and processing of written and spoken language in a wide variety of age groups, starting with preschoolers, across of the school years, and ending with university students. The populations investigated in the special issue articles all suffer from reading and spelling disabilities, often with additional problems of oral language impairment. We were thus able to examine the issue of dyslexia and language in an ecologically valid way and from a variety of perspectives.