Stealth dyslexia is the other difficult side of symptom cluster disorders. People are misdiagnosed with dyslexia when they are struggling to read, and others are not diagnosed because they aren't struggling.
I think it is a question of pattern matching vs. deconstructive analysis. Functionally a gifted brain can be wired towards one direction of organization or the other (good research on this, but not seen one addressing the direction of causality.)
On wiring type 1 (my term) there are large cluster brain cells (minicolumns) with the clusters widely spaced apart and this configuration favors strong pattern matching skills, at the extreme is pattern matching almost to the exclusion of deconstructive analysis. With wiring type 2 there are smaller clusters closer together and there is a strong orientation towards detail and analysis with problems pattern matching.
Type 1 wiring would be associated with stealth dyslexia and perhaps dyslexia in general ("perhaps" because again dyslexia is diagnosed as a symptom disorder rather than a causal diagnosis.) If you have strong type 1 wiring and a couple other pieces of the highly gifted puzzle (like overexcitabilities,) you cope really well and learn to read and recognize words as a sight reader very early.
But... if you are close to type 1 wiring and you have another factor that has made analysis and visual detail orientation difficult for you, your brain HAD to use pattern matching strategies to make sense of a fuzzy, out of focus, double-visioned world and that it is its #1 go to strategy. And it works really, really well, until you go to decode new words without context or follow instructions or..? For all intents and purposes this is functionally dyslexia, except your brain can liekly learn to use an analytic approach once the source of the need for pattern matching is addressed, but it will take time and may need special training in new strategies.
That's my operating theory, I don't think my DS7 has lifelong dyslexia or dysgraphia, but he only finished his therapy (patching) a year ago. So for the first 85+% of his life, his brain relied on robust pattern matching alone when dealing with visual information, one year is not a lot of time to catch up and train away what has been a pretty effective strategy.
