Phonological dyslexia is a reading disability that is a form of alexia (acquired dyslexia), resulting from brain injury, stroke, or progressive illness and that affects previously acquired reading abilities. The major distinguishing symptom of acquired phonological dyslexia is that a selective impairment of the ability to read pronounceable non-words occurs although the ability to read familiar words is not affected. It has also been found that the ability to read non-words can be improved if the non-words belong to a family of pseudohomophones.

Several studies have found that different levels of brain damage can lead to the occurrence of varying forms of non-word reading disorders. It has been found that during certain tasks, dyslexics had activated one of two regions of the brain: the Broca's area, which is responsible for speech, or the Wernicke's area, which is responsible for forming and understanding. Both areas were seldom active together. This study has led to the conclusion that there exist neural connection breakdowns between the language centers that may be causing dyslexia.