Auditory-Visual Integration, Intelligence and Reading Ability in School Children

Abstract

The developmental course of auditory-visual equivalence was studied in 220 elementary school children. It was found that improvement in auditory-visual integration was most rapid in the earliest school years and reached an asymptote by the fifth grade. The correlations obtained between IQ and auditory-visual integration suggested that the two features of functioning were nssociated but not synonymous. In contrast, the correlations between IQ and reading ability rose with age. These opposing age trends in correlations found between reading ability and auditory-visual equivalence and between reading ability and I Q are interpreted in terms of the possible attenuating effect introduced by the low age ceiling of the auditory visual test and the possibility that in acquiring reading skill primary perceptual factors are most important for initial acquisition but more general intellectual factors for later elaboration.T h e present study reports the developmental course of auditory-visual equivalence in children between 5 and 12 yr. of age and the relation of such equivalence co intellecmal status and the emergence of reading skill. The development of integrative and equivalence relationships between the auditory and visual systems has both theoretical and practical significance. A t the most general level, information on this aspect of development can provide a fuller understanding of the processes underlying changes with age in rhe organization of the perceived world of children and so provide clues as to the basis for changing behavioral organiza--tion. A t a practical level, the development of integrative organization between the auditory and visual systems appears to be essential for the acquisition of such a primary educational skill as reading ( 3 ) in which vis~ially presented and, therefore, spatially distributed stimulation comes to be treated as equivalent to auditorily presented and temporally distributed stimulus patterns. A growing body of evidence in comparative psychology (2, 11 ), neurophysiology ( 14, 15), perception ( 10, 1 6 ) , and learning (5, 6, 1 2 ) poincs to the importance of intersensory liaison, i.e., the integration of information arriving as inputs from the different sensory modalities, as a basic mechanism subserving adaptive functioning. However, information on the development of such incegmtions with age in children is still scanty.

Reading Retardation and Cross‐laterality in Relation to Short‐term Information Processing Tasks

“…It has been demonstrated in this experiment that there is a failing in short-term memory which is associated with ill-established cerebral dominance characterised by problems of cross-laterality. This explains Birch and Belmont's (1965) finding that poor auditory/visual integration is related to failure in reading.…”

“…Research in information processing has produced obvious implications for reading research (Thomas, 1969;Fritzen, 1972;Haber, 1973). The relationships to be found between poor reading and problems of short-term memory have been investigated superficially (Rose, 1958;Alwitt, 1963;Birch and Belmont, 1965). Also Sperry (1968) thought it necessary for cerebral dominance to be established for information processing to proceed successfully in a sequential manner from the right to the left cerebral hemisphere.…”

Sensory Integration Skills as Predictors of Reading Acquisition

“…To achieve such comparability all of the sensory tasks were composed of the identical 4 pairs of practice items and 12 pairs of test items. The first 12 test pairs of the Auditory-Visual Pattern Test (Birch & Belmont, 1964, 1965 were used, with the subjects being asked to judge equivalence within the pairs. Each task was presented both simultaneously and sequentially.…”

“…Supporting evidence comes from studies indicating that measures of cross-sensory integration skills correlate significantly with reading achievement at various grade levels. (Birch & Belmont, 1964, 1965Berry, 1967;Kahn & Birch, 1968;Jones & Aaron, 1971;Reilly, 1971. ) Moreover, other studies indicate that only measures of audiovisual integration contribute significant independent variance to the multiple correlations between different sensory tasks and reading (Muehl & Kremenak, 1966;Sterritt & Rudnick, 1966).…”

La reeducación de las dislexias evolutivas: sus fases

“…Uno es aquél que considera la dislexia evolutiva como un retraso en la adquisición de determinadas habilidades propias del momento evolutivo. Este retraso lector, según diferentes autores, es de origen perceptivo visual (Gross y Rothemberg, 1979;Kephart, 1971), debido a un movimiento inadecuado de los ojos (Pavlidis, 1978(Pavlidis, , 1979Nodine y Simmons, 1974), fallos en la memoria a corto plazo (Rugel, 1974;Naiddo, 1972;Nelson y Warrington, 1980), disfunción en la integración modal cruzada (Birch y Belmont, 1964, 1965 o por una disfunción en el lenguaje (Vellutino, 1979). En todas estas teorías subyace la opinión de que la caus.1 de los problemas lectores es más una lentificación del proceso que una pérdida o déficit de alguna habilidad.…”