The Neuropsychology of Reading Disorders by Steven Feifer and Philip De Fina gives a depth of information to clincians, parents and educators about reading disorders. It specifically explains several dyslexia subtypes. These include dysphonetic, surface, mixed and deep.

Dysphonetic dyslexia includes individuals that have great difficulty decoding nonsense words, yet there sight word vocabulary is intact. Surface dyslexia includes individuals that have great difficulty with visual-orthographic processing. Therefore, they often misread basic words and tend to read very slowly. Individuals with mixed dyslexia demonstrate characteristics of both dysphonetic and surface. Deep dyslexia, according to Feifer and De Fina, is a rare form of dyslexia. Individuals with this reading disorder typically have difficulty reading words with abstract meanings. Therefore they tend heavily relyl on sematincs to extract meaning from print.

Feifer and De Fina’s book not helps us better understand dyslexia, but they also offer recommendations for treating each type.

At Child and Family Development, I assess and treat individuals with dyslexia. Understanding the subtypes of dyslexia also helps me better evaluate a person’s struggles in reading so that I know exactly what type of interventions need to be implemented.