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Dyslexia rates are far higher in English than in most other languages. Bilingual people can be declared dyslexic only in English. Dyslexic and others with reading difficulties are stymied by the barriers in English spelling which are unnecessary.

Turn the reasons given why spelling should NOT be reformed into how it could be reformed. The visual and auditory routes to reading, importance of morphemes in English, links to our culture and etymology, the ‘Chomsky’ line about word families with underlying phonological similarity, the familiar appearance of text, the problem of growing dialects, and the world-wide importance of English. Spelling reform of our present system to remove exceptions can improve all these.

The small costs of this reform compare with the costs of so much illiteracy and semi-literacy. (Forget about radical phonetic reforms requiring everything to be reprinted and a new system learned. We are mending the present system.)

Let us see how this could be done, rather than throwing up our hands.

Much like intelligence or every mental function or dysfunction the genetic factors seem to be complex interactions of many different genes in many different locations . This is also complicated by the fact that there are different combinations and different genes involved in different people.

If you consider that the possible genes involved number 52 (as cards in a deck of cards and a reasonable number as a guess) then we have only identified maybe 15-20 of the involved genes. After all 52 genes have been identified in the future then the inter-relationships will have to be defined.

Say any particular individual might have 13 of the possible genes out of the 52 ( I am relating this example to playing bridge) then it is going to take years of research to determine the value of any particular genetic hand .

As right now most of the cards are still blank so it is impossible to determine the value of any hand.

Anytime a dyslexia or schizophrenic or dyslexia gene is identified it is similar to knowing what one more card in the deck is involved . That is a long way from knowing what the genetic hand is worth.

The media blows up the finding of each associated gene as if the final answer has been found rather than one more piece of the puzzle which is closer to the truth.

I hope the analogy helps .

Do a search for schizophrenia genetics and you'll come up with a number of links. In general, it is believed that genes play a role in schizophrenia, but I don't think there's an actual schizophrenia gene. Schizophrenia requires more than just a gene. For example, someone who may be predisposed to schizophrenia may instead become a musician, an artist, or a preacher, all of whom to some degree see and heart things.

You're right. Why they want to generate that hype, I could never understand, either. It's not like they make money selling newspapers with it. You usually read that crap online. Headlines trump content, apparently. How uselessly superficial.

The cause of dyslexia, science explains, is something about the speech centers of the brain. We know where these centers are, but I forget, I'm a layman. In fact we have it narrowed down pretty precisely. But basically we're going, "There! There's something wrong right there!" What's wrong is a whole different story. We don't know. Researchers would like to find which genes affect that area, or what interferes with it in early development, but that's a hell of a lot more difficult than it sounds.

Schizophrenia is tied with bipolar and depression for the most thoroughly researched psychological disorder. And we still have to admit we know nothing about it. It isn't inheritable--it's random--so genetics don't seem to have anything to do with it. That is, unless there is a random genetic mutation in one in every 4,000 people, in one of their bagillion genes, that totally throws a wrench into the fragile human higher processes of thought. That's the current belief of the credible scientific community. And try proving that one. It's impossible. We're pretty much at the end of the road for research into schizophrenia unless some mad geneticist stumbles upon the answer centuries from now.

While there is some evidence that these disorders have some hereditary traits, you are right, it is improbable that one gene is responsible for something with such a wide variety of manifestations. Our understanding of genetic biology is still limited, and some research even indicates that individual genes aren't really responsible for anything, but it's the interaction between genes and the order in which they're activated that creates individual traits.