Do dyslexics misread a ROWS for a ROSE?

Abstract

Insufficient knowledge of the subtle relations between words’ spellings and their phonology is widely held to be the primary limitation in developmental dyslexia. In the present study the influence of phonology on a semantic-based reading task was compared for groups of readers with and without dyslexia. As many studies have shown, skilled readers make phonology-based false-positive errors to homophones and pseudohomophones in the semantic categorization task. The basic finding was extended to children, teens, and adults with dyslexia from familial and clinically-referred samples. Dyslexics showed the same overall pattern of phonology errors and the results were consistent across dyslexia samples, across age groups, and across experimental conditions using word and nonword homophone foils. The dyslexic groups differed from chronological-age matched controls by having elevated false-positive homophone error rates overall, and weaker effects of baseword frequency. Children with dyslexia also made more false-positive errors to spelling control foils. These findings suggest that individuals with dyslexia make use of phonology when making semantic decisions both to word homophone and non-word pseudohomophone foils and that dyslexics lack adequate knowledge of actual word spellings, compared to chronological-age and reading-level matched control participants.

Visual word learning in adults with dyslexia

“…Visual word learning involves creating phonological as well as orthographic representations: difficulties in learning spoken word-forms would be expected to impact on visual word learning. The few published studies of visual (rather than spoken) word learning in dyslexia suggest, however, that dyslexics have problems learning new written word-forms over and above any problems they experience in learning spoken words (Reitsma, 1983 ; Ehri and Saltmarsh, 1995 ; Share and Shalev, 2004 ; De Jong and Messbauer, 2011 ; O'Brien et al, 2013 ). Reitsma ( 1983 ; Expt.…”

Phonologically-mediated meaning activation in monolinguals and bilinguals

“…Less phonological activation in the bilingual group differs from what would be expected for less skilled monolingual readers who typically exhibit larger effects of phonology (Jared et al, 1999;O'Brien et al, 2013;Unsworth & Pexman, 2003) and indicates that the reading performance of these bilinguals is qualitatively different and does not simply reflect an earlier stage of reading development. Differences in language experience provide a likely explanation for these results.…”

“…An intermediate position suggests that both routes provide activation to semantics but that their relative contributions depend on factors such as word and reader characteristics (Harm & Seidenberg, 2004). For example, the inclusion of low frequency words and less skilled readers typically results in greater reliance on phonology during word recognition (Jared, Levy & Rayner, 1999;O'Brien, Van Orden & Pennington, 2013;Unsworth & Pexman, 2003). Such findings may lead researchers to equate phonological-mediation of meaning with a less experienced or efficient word recognition system.…”

The role of phonology in lexical access in teenagers with a history of dyslexia

“…In contrast, there is some evidence to suggest that phonological processing can function normally in individuals with dyslexia [17]. A semantic categorisation task was used, with both word and nonword foils, across samples of children, teenagers, and adults with dyslexia, as well as reading age-and chronological age-matched typically developing control groups.…”