Acquired dyslexia: One of the two major categories of dyslexia,
this form of the disorder resulting directly from brain damage
usually to the left cerebral hemisphere.
(Colman, 2001, p. 8)
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: A mental disorder of childhood … characterized by persistent
inattention, hyperactivity, or impulsivity, with some of these
signs and symptoms appearing before age 7, causing problems at
school or work and in the home, and interfering significantly with
social, academic, or occupational functioning.
(Colman, 2001, p. 62)
Developmental dyslexia: One of the two
major categories of dyslexia, forms of the disorder that develop
during childhood from unknown causes, also called reading
disorder.
(Colman, 2001, p. 200)
Dyspraxia: An impairment in ability to
perform deliberate movements, not caused by any defect in sensory
or motor functions.
(Colman, 2001, p. 227)
Garden-variety poor readers: These
children share the phonological deficits of dyslexia but have
additional cognitive problems, including poor working memory, poor
vocabulary, and difficulties with sentence construction tasks.
(Snowling and Hayiou-Thomas, 2006, p. 122)
Hyperactivity: Abnormal or pathological
overactivity; a prominent feature of
attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and hyperkinetic
disorders.
(Colman, 2001, p. 343)
Phonological awareness: the ability to reflect upon the
sound structure of spoken words
(Olson et al, 1989 cited in Snowling, 1998, p. 7)
Self-perception: an ‘umbrella term’ used to
describe the thoughts, feelings, attitudes and beliefs that make a
person an individual.
(Humphrey, 2003, p 130)
Opaque language: characterises a language which permits a
number of orthographic inconsistencies, eg English. This type of
language may aggravate the problems with dyslexia.
(Snowling and Hayiou-Thomas, 2006; Vellutino et al,
2004)
Transparent language: characterises a language that has a
more regular spelling system, eg Dutch.
(Snowling and Hayiou-Thomas, 2006)