State-level dyslexia laws: a systematic review

In the last 13 years, there has been an explosion of state-level dyslexia legislation amidst a rapid and dispersed advocacy movement. Thus, it is important to understand the genesis and impact of these policies across all stages of the policy process (Anderson, 2023). Given that most of these laws have been only recently enacted, the existing research on them is limited. This comprehensive review synthesizes research on state-level dyslexia laws, identifies gaps across policy stages, and highlights priorities to inform more effective policy. We examined peer-reviewed journal research on state-level dyslexia laws across different stages of policy development, and our search and screening process resulted in 12 articles. In all, the results of this literature review show that the research on state-level dyslexia laws has employed multiple kinds of research designs and theoretical frameworks while aiming to answer different descriptive and evaluative questions. The implications of our findings show that more evaluative research is needed on state dyslexia laws to understand their effectiveness, unintended consequences, and impact on special education, with comparative studies helping to inform policies that better support students with dyslexia.