Are dyslexia and developmental language disorder isolated or comorbid conditions? An integrative review

Abstract

ABSTRACT Purpose: to gather scientific evidence on the linguistic skill profile in developmental dyslexia and developmental language disorder to better understand possible comorbid or isolated conditions. Methods: an integrative review of the literature. The search was conducted in SciELO, ERIC, LILACS, and PubMed. The inclusion criteria were as follows: 1) studies published and available in open-access national and international journals in full text; 2) addressing the topic in the last 10 years; 3) in English and/or Portuguese. Literature Review: the search retrieved 654 articles, the final sample comprising 10, 5 of which agreed with the hypothesis that dyslexia and developmental language disorder can be comorbid disorders, impairing reading, writing, and phonological awareness. The other studies described broader language deficits in children with developmental language disorder alone, affecting language decoding and comprehension, whereas deficits in dyslexia are more associated with phonological processing. Conclusion: there is no consensus on whether dyslexia and developmental language disorders occur simultaneously in children. However, both pose risks to reading comprehension and school performance.