Dyslexia is characterized by difficult reading even “in relation to intelligence, education and professional status” (Science Daily). This means that dyslexia causes reading difficulties despite the individual’s IQ. Researchers at Yale School of Medicine and University of California Davis recently presented data illustrating how “otherwise bright and intelligent people struggle to read.”
The researchers used data from the Connecticut Longitudinal Study, which is an ongoing 12-year study of cognitive and behavioral development in a representative sample of 445 Connecticut school children. Researchers tested the children every year in reading and tested for IQ every other year, hoping “to show how the dissociation between cognitive ability and reading ability might develop in children.”Researchers found that in typical readers, IQ and reading not only track together, but also influence each other over time. Children with dyslexia, however, experience a dissociation between IQ and reading: IQ and reading are not linked over time and do not influence one another, which explains why people with dyslexia can be very intelligent and not read well.