Abstract / Summary
Phenomena relating to reading difficulties assume many names but none more controversial than dyslexia. Previous historical accounts of the so-called “dyslexia debates” (Elliott & Grigorenko, 2024b; Kirby, 2020) focus on definitions of dyslexia that incorporate the assumption that dyslexia results from some specific, albeit not completely understood, neurobiological etiology of specific reading challenges. Similar disagreements appear presently in the form of competing conceptualizations of dyslexia (Elliott, 2020; Odegard et al., 2024) and their influence on the International Dyslexia Association’s 2025 definition of dyslexia. The ensuing conceptual analysis examines dyslexia according to its past, present, and possible future conceptualizations by highlighting the varied contexts in which dyslexia evolved, namely the fields of medicine, education, and disability. The analysis reveals that the concept of dyslexia has become entangled in paradigmatic differences between these contexts. It is suspected that these differences will continue to subject dyslexia to the same old debates and limit the translation of developing thought on dyslexia into meaningful service delivery systems. A sketch of an integrative framework is proposed to guide dyslexia’s future.