An interpretative model of early indicators of specific developmental dyslexia in preschool age: a comparative presentation of three studies in Greece.
Six preschool red flags predict dyslexia years before reading begins.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Three Greek research teams followed 4- to young learners for two years.
They tracked phonological skills, motor skills, memory, attention, and early letter knowledge.
Each team used the same tests so results could be pooled.
What they found
Kids who later got dyslexia showed six clear red flags in preschool.
These were weak rhyming, clumsy fine-motor play, poor visual memory, short attention span, and trouble naming letters.
The more red flags a child had, the higher the risk.
How this fits with other research
Tsai et al. (2011) also saw attention problems link to spelling errors in older kids, backing the attention-literate link.
Kuhn et al. (2022) found that motor delays can hurt bone health, so early motor screening helps both reading and physical health.
Cai et al. (2019) showed vocabulary beats phonology for Chinese deaf readers, reminding us that risk markers may shift across languages.
Why it matters
You can spot dyslexia risk before formal reading starts. Use quick rhyme games, bead threading, and letter-naming checks at intake. Flag kids with two or more weak spots for close follow-up.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Add a 2-minute rhyme-and-bead task to your intake battery and note any child who fails both parts.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
The detection of specific factors of the developmental dyslexia at an early stage, and the identification of the role of those factors responsible for its manifestation, is a fundamental area of study on dyslexia in the recent literature. The objective of the present study is to clarify that dysfunctions in the following specific domains contribute in a causal model to the occurrence of dyslexia at an early stage: phonological awareness, psychomotor ability (body shape, spatio-temporal orientation, grapho-motor ability and laterality), perception, memory, attention, prereading and prewriting skills. The results of three studies, --carried out in Greece--which revealed the above factors as main predictors of the early onset of Specific Developmental Dyslexia (SDD) and confirmed the importance of intervention methods to it, led us to the construction of the proposed, causal model. The findings of these three studies converge on the perspective that the understanding, diagnosis and treatment of dysfunctions in the above domains, from preschool age, enable the early and reliable prevention of future difficulties in the learning process of children.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2011 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2011.03.021