Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T22:24:19.094Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Toward understanding the problem in severely disabled readers Part 1: Vowel errors

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Susan E. Bryson  and
Janet F. Werker
Susan E. Bryson*
Affiliation:
Dalhousie University
Janet F. Werker
Affiliation:
The University of British Columbia
*
Susan E. Bryson, Department of Psychology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario NIG 2W1, Canada.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This experiment examined the vowel responses of severely disabled readers and normal control children in reading orthographically regular nonwords. The disabled readers were divided into three groups based on their relative Verbal and Performance IQs. Following the rationale of Fowler, Shankweiler, and Liberman (1979), vowel responses were classified as incorrect or correct. Correctness was determined according to either context-free or context-dependent criteria. The main finding was that the vowel responses of two out of three reading disabled groups paralleled those of their reading level peers. However, disabled readers with higher Performance than Verbal IQs made significantly more context-free responses and significantly fewer context-dependent responses than all other groups. Moreover, knowledge of how speech is segmented at the phonemic level predicted performance on the reading task. The findings suggest that disabled readers employ very local (context-independent) strategies in reading; these findings are discussed in terms of the idea that disabled readers suffer a basic deficit in phonological processing (Liberman, Liberman, & Mattingly, 1980) or linguistic processing (Siegel & Ryan, 1984).

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , March 1989 , pp. 1 - 12
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Barron, R. W. (1986). Word recognition in early reading: A review of the direct and indirect access hypotheses. Cognition, 24, 93–120.Google Scholar
Boder, E. (1971). Developmental dyslexia: Prevailing diagnostic concepts and a new diagnostic approach. In Myklebust, H. (Ed.), Progress in learning disabilities, Vol. 2. New York: Grune & Stratton.Google Scholar
Dewey, G. (1970). Relative frequency of English spellings. New York: Teacher's College Press.Google Scholar
Doehring, D. H., Trites, R., Patel, P. G., & Fiedorowicz, C. A. M. (1981). Reading disabilities: The interaction of reading, language, and neuropsychological deficits. New York: Academic.Google Scholar
Ellis, N., & Large, B. (1987). The development of reading: As you seek so shall you find. British Journal of Psychology, 78, 1–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Firth, I. (1972). Components of reading disability. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of New South Wales.Google Scholar
Fowler, C., Liberman, I., & Shankweiler, D. (1977). On interpreting the error pattern in beginning reading. Language and Speech, 20, 162–173.Google Scholar
Fowler, C., Shankweiler, D., & Liberman, I. (1979). Apprehending spelling patterns for vowels: A developmental study. Language and Speech, 22, 243–251.Google Scholar
Frith, U., & Snowling, M. (1983). Reading for meaning and reading for sound in autistic and dyslexic children. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 1, 329–342.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Godfrey, J., Syrdal-Lasky, A., Millay, K., & Knox, C. (1981). Performance of dyslexic children on speech perception tests. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 32, 401–424.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jorm, A. F. (1979). The nature of the reading deficit in developmental dyslexia: A reply to Ellis. Cognition, 7, 421–433.Google Scholar
Kinsbourne, M., & Warrington, E. (1966). Developmental factors in reading and writing backwardness. In Money, J. (Ed.), The disabled reader: Education of the dyslexic child. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.Google Scholar
Liberman, I. Y., Liberman, A. M., & Mattingly, I. G. (1980). Orthography and the beginning reader. In Kavanagh, J. & Venezky, R. (Eds.), Orthography, reading and dyslexia. Baltimore: University Park Press.Google Scholar
Liberman, I., Shankweiler, D., Fischer, F. W., & Carter, B. (1974). Explicit syllable and phoneme segmentation in the young child. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 18, 201–212.Google Scholar
Lovett, M. (1984). A developmental perspective on reading dysfunction: Accuracy and rate criteria in the subtyping of dyslexic children. Brain and Language, 22, 67–91.Google Scholar
Manis, F., & Morrison, F. (1985). Reading disability: A deficit in rule learning? In Siegal, L. S. & Morrison, F. J. (Eds.), Cognitive development in atypical children: Progress in cognitive development research. New York: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Manis, F., Savage, P., Morrison, F., Horn, C., Howell, M., Szeszulski, P., & Holt, L. (1987). Paired associate learning in reading-disabled children: Evidence for a rule-learning deficiency. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 43, 25–43.Google Scholar
Mann, V. A., & Liberman, I. (1984). Phonological awareness and verbal short-term memory. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 17, 592–599.Google Scholar
Sattler, J. M. (1982). Assessment of children's intelligence and special abilities (2nd ed.). Toronto: Allyn & Bacon.Google Scholar
Seidenberg, M., Bruck, M., Fornarolo, G., & Backman, J. (1985). Word recognition processes of poor and disabled readers: Do they necessarily differ? Applied Psycholinguistics, 6, 161–180.Google Scholar
Shankweiler, D., & Liberman, I. (1972). Misreading: A search for causes. In Kavanagh, J. F. & Mattingly, I. G. (Eds.), Language by ear and by eye. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Siegel, L., & Ryan, E. (1984). Reading disability as a language disorder. Remedial and Speech Education, 5, 28–33.Google Scholar
Snowling, M. (1980). The development of grapheme-phoneme correspondence in normal and dyslexic readers. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 29, 294–305.Google Scholar
Vellutino, F. R., & Scanion, D. M. (1982). Verbal processing in poor and normal readers. In Brainerd, C. J. & Pressley, M. (Eds.), verbal processes in children. New York: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Wechsler, D. (1974). Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised. New York: The Psychological Corporation.Google Scholar
Werker, J. F., Bryson, S. E., & Wassenberg, K. (1989). Toward understanding the problem in severely disabled readers, Part II: Consonant errors. Applied Psycholinguistics 10, 13–30.Google Scholar
Werker, J. F., & Tees, R. C. (1987). Speech perception in severely disabled and average reading children. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 41, 48–61.Google Scholar