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died is the training of eye movements of people with aphakia (because, he points out, the lateral movements of their eyes are longer than those of readers who have not had the operation). Their visual training program has also cured children of chronic stomach cramps, nausea and headaches.

The concepts and methods described in this book contrast markedly with those em­phasized by most other texts on reading problems. Moreover, the high incidence of functional ocular abnormalities that the au­thor mentions—60% of all students—has no­where been documented by other investiga­tors.

This book makes it quite clear that the medical profession must take a responsible interest and part in evaluating the ocular status of retarded readers.

Alex E. Krill

READING DISABILITY: DEVELOPMENTAL DYSLEXIA. By Lloyd J. Thompson, A.B., M.D. Springfield, Illinois, Charles C Thomas, 1966. Clothbound, 201 numbered pages, 4 figures. Price: $8.75. This book is a psychiatrist's summary of

the arguments favoring the hypothesis that most reading defects are innate, that they represent a resultant "developmental lag" that is genetically determined.

In a brief historical review of the subject we learn, interestingly, that it was an En­glish ophthalmologist who, in 1896, first re­corded detailed observations on a patient with a reading disorder. Probably the fa­mous Edward Jackson of Denver was the first to cite such observations in this country when he read a paper on "Congenital word blindness" before the Colorado Medical So­ciety in 1905. The use of such a designation by ophthalmologists at that time to describe reading disorder was compatible with their theory that reading defects were usually sec­ondary to brain damage or caused by an or­ganic lesion in the brain. They were almost unanimous in pointing out that the disorder

was not caused by any dysfunction or dis- i ease of the eyes.

Other medical specialties became inter­ested in reading and, in 1925, Orton, a psy­chiatrist, wrote a paper which attributed reading disorders to an innate defect that was expressed as a developmental lag in Ian- ' guage skills. He noted that these children usually have other language disorders as well, including imperfect speech, a poor ear for words and a meager oral vocabulary. Their motor skills develop more slowly and they exhibit more awkward motor control (poor handwriting, etc.), longer retention of tonic-neck reflex-attitude responses and more variable motor tone than normal. They frequently come from families in which there is left-handedness, more than one lan­guage spoken, and reading, spelling and " motor co-ordination defects. Orton and his disciples felt that there was no need to pos­tulate brain damage in these children but rather that these defects all reflected devel­opmental abnormality. Thus the term "de­velopmental dyslexia" originated.

The author of this book is an Orton disci- , pie. He admits, however, that there are, rarely, other possible sources of reading de­fects (organic damage in the central ner­vous system, emotional, environmental or psychologic disturbances). But he feels that these other factors often merely intensify , effects in "a specifically prepared physio­logical soil."

The author likens the inheritance of read­ing abilities to other sensory and motor abil­ities such as a feel for rhythm, an ear for music, memory, emotional expressiveness, . motor co-ordination, depth of feeling and even color vision. His analogy fails with color vision particularly, for there is no sen­sitivity continuum from exquisite discrimi­nation of all shades of color to ability to recognize only shades of black and white ι that is comparable to the apparent grada­tions in the other "abilities."

The crux of the developmental-lag theory is the supposed genetic nature of the defect.

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The author naively states that studies of the chromosome are being carried out on the as­sumption that some unusual genetic compli­cation may be found, but he gives no refer­ences. (Are there any geneticists doing chromosome studies for a "reading de­fect"?)

Obviously there are educators, physicians and psychologists who do not accept a "de­velopmental lag" as the predominant cause of reading disorders, and the author ac­knowledges this fact. But he does not ade­quately describe their objections. An impor­tant observation of many educators is that children with reading problems often do not show many of the other deficiencies that Orton associated with "developmental dyslexia" (many have only the reading problem). Even some of the author's own case reports are not convincing examples of developmental lag but rather suggest other causative factors.

This book quite rightly exmphasizes the importance of the reading problem. "Among school children in this country (6 to 17 years of age), over 10 per cent of those not mentally retarded are more than 2 years re­tarded in reading according to their mental age ability." However, a reading problem at a young age has not prevented significant achievement for some gifted individuals (for example, Woodrow Wilson, Thomas A. Edison, August Rodin, Paul Ehrlich and Gamil Nasser). An interesting suggestion of the author is that Lee Harvey Oswald had developmental dyslexia. He presents ev­idence for this contention and then "won­ders what the outcome might have been if the handicap had been recognized when he started his schooling and appropriate re­medial reading had been utilized at that time."

The author offers many suggestions for attacking the widespread problem of dys­lexia at various levels. He urges that schools identify developmental dyslexia as early as possible and that reading instruction begin at the age of four or five years. Some edu­

cators would not approve of this latter suggestion because not all children are "ready" to read by the age of four or five (irrespective of whether or not they have reading problems at a later age).

This book is valuable for its detailed de­scription of the developmental-lag theory of reading disability.

Alex E. Krill

T H E DISABLED READER: EDUCATION OF THE DYSLEXIC CHILD. Edited by John Money. Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins Press, 1966. Clothbound, 421 pages, 21 figures (including 3 that are in color), 17 tables. Price: $8.50. This book is a collection of independent

writings discussing principles of the reading process, teaching beginning readers and the diagnosis and treatment of reading prob­lems. It was assembled by combining origi­nal chapters from 13 contributors with four chapters reprinted from already published material. The contributors include psycholo­gists, educators, a linguist and a psychi­atrist.

Most modern teaching programs for be­ginning readers attempt to solve that trou­blesome truth about the English language: the inconsistent relationship between its phonology and its orthography. (For in­stance, ough can appear as plough, ought, rough, though, cough, or through and, as G. B. Shaw pointed out, ghoti should be pro­nounced just like fish : gh as in rough ; o as in women; and ti as in nation.) One pro­gram uses an artificial alphabet with consis­tent sound-symbol relationships (The Initial Teaching Alphabet). Eventually the child transfers to the regular alphabet. Another method superimposes consistency on ex­isting letters by assigning a given color to a letter or a compound of letters if the pho­netic or sound value is the same. A third method uses a "linguistics" approach. Ini­tially only letter combinations with regular or consistent relationships between sounds