Integrated Sensory Theory

http://www.macalester.edu/academics/psychology/whathap/ubnrp/dyslexia/sensory.html Integrated Sensory Theory Although research on dyslexia is young and seemingly non-cohesive, many of the latest publications give a parting line of hope for future research. These researchers note that the common thread among the evidence lies in the fast-processing of the temporal and parietal lobes. To support this, researchers point to phonological studies performed on children with learning disabilities and, in part, on dyslexics. These studies indicate that phonological problems are traced back, not to the ear, but also to the temporal regions of the brain. In addition, the phonological processes most greatly affected are those which process rapid information (Tallal, 1996). Just as in the magnocellular visual pathway, a glitch in this rapid processing results in boggled and confused information, experienced, in this case, as distorted sound. These researchers have also linked phonological disorders to reading deficits, arguing that "the basic problem of dyslexics is their lack of phonological awareness -- inability to break words into individual phonemes." (Travis, 1996)
For many researchers, the similarity between the phonological and visual deficits is a sign for the direction of future research. States Rutgers' professor Paula Tallal, "What's wrong with vision seems awfully similar to what's wrong with audition. It's a timing problem." (Travis, 1996). She and other researchers are now suggesting that the visual, phonological, and even vestibullary difficulties noted in most dyslexics may stem from an overall rapid-processing sensory deficit.