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dc.contributor.authorTønnessen, Finn Egil
dc.contributor.authorUppstad, Per Henning
dc.date.accessioned2015-02-11T14:20:27Z
dc.date.available2015-02-11T14:20:27Z
dc.date.issued2015-01
dc.identifier.citationTønnessen, F.E; Uppstad, P.H (2015) Can we read letters? Reflections on fundamental issues in reading and dyslexia research. Rotterdam: Sense Publishersnb_NO
dc.identifier.isbn9789462099562
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11250/275843
dc.description.abstractInternationally there has been a major increase in activity within reading and dyslexia research over the past three or four decades. This is a reasonable development given that the importance of having good reading skills has grown ever greater in our modern society, where information and education take pride of place. However, that increase in research activity has not resulted in more attention being devoted to the fundamental questions within the field. Most branches of science, once they attain a certain level in their development, tend to ask more and more questions pertaining to the philosophy of science. This is crucial for assessing the quality of research and for deciding the way forward. Empirical researchers may well find such theoretical issues rather alien to their work, but there is in fact a great deal of practical benefit to be drawn from careful consideration of them. It is hard to imagine a Nobel laureate who has never reflected upon issues relating to the philosophy of science. When I first embarked upon research into reading and dyslexia twenty-five years ago, I was uncertain where to concentrate my efforts within a field which was becoming more and more multifaceted. The deciding factor turned out to be my background – and interest – in medicine, psychology, logic and the philosophy of science. My PhD thesis focused on the hypotheses and findings published shortly before by Norman Geschwind and Albert Galaburda about the relationship between brain lateralisation (left-handedness), immunological diseases and dyslexia. I remain fascinated to this day by the creativity and boldness of those hypotheses, but that did not prevent me from presenting questions and critical objections in my thesis. In my opinion, one characteristic of good research is precisely that it inspires new hypotheses and new studies. However, describing and explaining reading and dyslexia on the basis of neurology alone did not seem enough to me, and nor did I think the answers provided by behaviourism were sufficient. This is why I enthusiastically launched into studies based on cognitive psychology. As time went on, though, that school of thought also came to feel too one-sided and too limited. I found connectionism to be a good way of unifying these different approaches, but after a while I instead started to search for the solution in the concept of ‘skill’, which I considered capable of bringing all of these different schools of thought together. In my opinion, it is fairly obvious that reading is above all a ‘skill’ or ‘procedural knowledge’. It represents primarily implicit – not explicit – knowledge. For my definition of ‘skill’, I borrowed the concept of ‘automaticity’ from behaviourism and that of ‘awareness’ from cognitive psychology, but it was clear to me that they could not be unified through simple addition or combination, so I turned to philosophy for a solution. [...]nb_NO
dc.language.isoengnb_NO
dc.publisherSense Publishersnb_NO
dc.subjectdysleksinb_NO
dc.subjectdyslexianb_NO
dc.subjectlesevitenskapnb_NO
dc.subjectliteracynb_NO
dc.subjectphilosophy of sciencenb_NO
dc.titleCan we read letters? Reflections on fundamental issues in reading and dyslexia researchnb_NO
dc.typeBooknb_NO
dc.subject.nsiVDP::Humanities: 000nb_NO
dc.source.pagenumber132nb_NO


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