[Secondary symptoms of reading and spelling disability]

The hypothesis that the secondary symptoms of legasthenia can be derived in a linear and causal way from the primary symptoms is investigated. This study is based on data from the patients' history, diagnosis, therapy, and catamnesis. It is shown, that behavioural and adaptability disturbances are for the major part of prelegasthenic character but may become more pronounced by the manifestation of the primary symptoms. The parallel course of primary and so-called secondary symptoms with different times of manifestation is discussed as a conceptional model. Furthermore, the much less fully authenticated conceptional model based on findings in a childrens' neuropsychiatric clinic, which claims the existence of genuine secondary symptoms in a causal relationship to the primary symptoms, is not put into dispute.