Editorial: Understanding developmental dyslexia: linking perceptual and cognitive deficits to reading processes

The problem of causation has proven particularly elusive in the case of developmental dyslexia (DD). The field has been dominated by very general hypotheses, such as the idea that DD is caused by a phonological deficit and/or an impairment of the magnocellular pathway. Results are contrasting and causal unidirectional links have not been persuasively demonstrated.

Some studies in the Research Topic (RT) re-examine these general hypotheses from the critical perspective of more selective predictions. Others focus on less general deficit hypotheses and stay closer to reading by investigating specific aspects of the reading process such as orthographic learning ability or the ability to deal with multiple-stimulus displays. Studies benefit from new research paradigms as well as new information from research areas such as neuroimaging or genetics. Below, we sketch the general questions tackled by these studies.