Children at risk of dyslexia - a follow up in early adolescence

It is now widely recognized that dyslexia is a language-based disorder that runs in families. Although dyslexia is perhaps the best understood of learning disorders, surprisingly few longitudinal studies have documented the progress of children with dyslexia.

This project was a follow-up study to an earlier UK-wide study undertaken by Frith and Snowling looking at children at genetic risk of dyslexia and their progress in the early years (at ages 4, 6 and 8). 56 children from dyslexic families who took part in the earlier at-risk study were followed up at age 12 to compare their progress after the first year in secondary school with that of controls.

The study identified individual risk and protective factors that may affect cognitive, literacy and psycho-social outcomes. As well as contributing to theoretical knowledge of dyslexia, the findings had implications for the identification and management of children who may need more than mainstream support to ensure literacy skills are sufficiently well-developed for secondary school transfer.