Scores of blind and partially sighted children on verbal WISC scales were compared with those of sighted children in an attempt to discover whether the factor structures of the two groups corresponded. Score differences were caused mainly by the Comprehension and Digit Span subtests, blind and partially sighted children scoring lower than sighted children on the former, but higher on the latter. Intercorrelations among subtest scores were substantially stronger for blind children, with the exception of Digit Span. For sighted children, subtest scores were much more scattered, though scores on Information and Vocabulary, and Arithmetic and Digit Span, fell relatively close together.

During the past five years a comprehensive research project called 'The prevention of reading difficulties' has been designed and carried out in the Netherlands. This project included a longitudinal study to investigate the development of various subskills in word recognition, reading comprehension and spelling over a period of three years.Two samples, including 12 schools each, were drawn at random. The data have been analysed by means of the general LISREL-model. The results of the two groups largely agree with each other. With respect to the reading prerequisites two factors are found, a general factor and an auditory factor. The influence of the general factor appears clearly stronger than the other one.After 3 to 4 months of formal reading instruction, decoding speed and spelling turn out to be distinguishable factors. The influence of spelling on decoding skills supports the view that at this initial stage accuracy in the analysis and blending of words is a prerequisite to learning to decode quickly. It may be concluded that after eight months of reading instruction decoding skills, reading comprehension and spelling are clearly distinguishable factors. Decoding skills influence reading comprehension. However, the path coefficients are not so high as to be able to attribute differences in reading comprehension almost completely to differences in decoding skills.The distinctive character of the three factors of decoding, comprehension and spelling is revealed much more clearly than in cross-sectional research. These results correspond with the assumption that cross-sectionally found causal effects often decrease or disappear all together in favour of 'memory effects' in longitudinal research. RESUME Une investigation des relations entre reconnaissance des mots, comprkhension de la lecture et kcriture au cows des deux premi&res annkes d'kcole primaireUn projet de recherche global appele 'La prevention des difficultes de lecture' a ete mis au point et realist aux Pays Bas au cours de cinq dernieres annees. Ce projet comportait une etude longitudinale pour examiner le developpement de diverses capacites dans la reconnaissance des mots, la comprehension de la lecture et I'ecriture pendant une periode de trois ans. On a tire au sort deux groupes de 12 ecoles chacun. Les donnees relatives aux enfants provenant de ces ecoles ont ete analysees au moyen de la technique statistique LISREL. L'approche LISREL offre la possibilite d'evaluer au moyen de la methode de proximite maximale I'adtquation aussi bien globale que locale de modeles d'analyse statistique multivarite dans lesquels on peut faire entrer des effets aussi bien transversaux que longitudinaux, et la possibilite d'utiliser des variables observees aussi bien que latentes.Au cours des deux premieres annees d'ecole primaire, la lecture et l'ecriture se developpent relativement vite. Quoiqu'une recherche transversale puisse contribuer a clarifier la relation entre lecture et ecriture, une recherche longitudinale est ntcessaire pour decouvrir les relations causa...

This study compares reading skills of visually impaired children with those of sighted children. It also investigates the relationships between reading achievement and residual vision, hand movement during reading, verbal intelligence, and haptic perception. The blind children took some 2½ times as long as sighted children to read separate unrelated words, though poor braille readers tended to lag farther behind poor sighted readers than good braille readers lagged behind good sighted readers. Amount of residual vision bore little relationship to reading ability, but the way a child moved his or her hand during reading bore a strong relationship. Verbal IQ, as measured on the verbal section of WISC, showed a stronger relationship with reading achievement than did haptic perception. Of the various haptic measures used, form discrimination and figure orientation were more important than size and roughness discrimination.

Reviews the literature on hand and finger usage in reading braille. Describes an experiment using 25 blind students to test whether they read faster and/or more accurately with: the left index finger rather than the right one; the left middle finger rather than the right one; the index finger rather than the middle finger; and, with spontaneous hand usage (usually both hands), whether the student read faster and/or more accurately than with the index finger of one hand.

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