"the condition --- however named --- exists anyway"
"Even words he had to write daily (being a teacher and all), he couldn't spell with high accuracy."
It is not clear to me what that "condition" would mean in China, where "spelling" is not an issue (or at least has a completely different meaning than it does in English) and where it is relatively common for people to be able to read characters but fail to remember how to write them. It is also unclear to me how anyone could have a "condition" in which they struggle to spell if we did not have arbitrary spelling conventions i.e. if we used a purely phonetic writing system.
None of this is to say that there is no truly "universal" concept of dyslexia i.e. a neurological difficulty involving difficulty connecting symbols to meaning. In fact this article suggests that such a thing does exist and can be observed across various writing systems:
A telling sentence from the conclusion: "It is important to note, however, that prevalence rate is highly sensitive to the criteria used to define dyslexia..." I would argue that a "true" medical/psychological condition should not be so dependent on specific cultural practices like spelling rules.
> It is not clear to me what that "condition" would mean in China
If you said so because I'm Chinese and you wonder what I meant, in this specific example, I'm talking about a British person writing English. You know, a good number of people in China also write English all the time. ;)
With regards to Chinese characters, not only do people forget how to write characters sometimes, but also some people do have problems recognizing mis-written characters, e.g. a missing stroke, an extra stroke, etc.
> It is also unclear to me how anyone could have a "condition" in which they struggle to spell if we did not have arbitrary spelling conventions.
I agree, if hypothetically there is only one way to pronounce words, and only one way to spell a syllable, this would be less of a problem, as the person can deduce the correct spelling if memory fails. There are still other factors, like speed and error rate, that the hypothetical language might not solve.
Although, I imagine it would be hard to replace the natural languages in human society at this point.
> I would argue that a "true" medical/psychological condition should not be so dependent on specific cultural practices like spelling rules.
If the actual cause of the condition is triggered by a specific cultural practice, I don't see why the condition cannot be referring to such practice.
It would be similar to how when a condition is caused by occupational practices, its medical description will refer to the occupational practices.
At this point, we don't have a universal definition dyslexia, and I don't think that's because the is cultural specific, but simply that we don't know what's happening. Our recognition of the condition is quite superficial, and even within a single language, a universal and precise definition has not yet been contrived.
"Even words he had to write daily (being a teacher and all), he couldn't spell with high accuracy."
It is not clear to me what that "condition" would mean in China, where "spelling" is not an issue (or at least has a completely different meaning than it does in English) and where it is relatively common for people to be able to read characters but fail to remember how to write them. It is also unclear to me how anyone could have a "condition" in which they struggle to spell if we did not have arbitrary spelling conventions i.e. if we used a purely phonetic writing system.
None of this is to say that there is no truly "universal" concept of dyslexia i.e. a neurological difficulty involving difficulty connecting symbols to meaning. In fact this article suggests that such a thing does exist and can be observed across various writing systems:
https://dyslexiaida.org/the-myths-and-truths-of-dyslexia/
A telling sentence from the conclusion: "It is important to note, however, that prevalence rate is highly sensitive to the criteria used to define dyslexia..." I would argue that a "true" medical/psychological condition should not be so dependent on specific cultural practices like spelling rules.