Does dyslexia exist?

I've always maintained there was no such thing.

An education expert has claimed that dyslexia "does not exist" because it has no valid scientific basis.

Up to six million people in Britain are believed to suffer from the brain disorder that disrupts reading and writing.

But Prof Julian Elliott claims there is widespread disagreement over what it is and the term is largely an "emotional construct".

Prof Elliott, who teaches at Durham University, said poor readers wanted to be called dyslexic because of a "widespread, but wrong, perception that dyslexics are, generally, intellectually bright". But after 30 years in the field he had "little confidence" in his ability to diagnose it.

"Contrary to claims of 'miracle cures' there is no sound, widely accepted body of scientific work that has shown there exists any particular teaching approach more appropriate for 'dyslexic' children than for other poor readers," he wrote in the Times Education Supplement.