Serial Recall of Poor Readers in Two Presentation Modalities: Combined Effects of Phonological Similarity and Word Length

Phonological working memory in German children with poor reading and spelling abilities

“…Instead, poor readers and spellers showed phonological similarity and word length effects similar in strength to those of the chronological age control group in all experimental conditions, including the one in which neither verbal input nor spoken output was involved. These findings correspond to those of other studies reporting a qualitatively normal pattern of word length and phonological similarity effects in poor readers in serial recall tasks with auditory presentation and visual recall (Baddeley & Wilson, 1993;Irausquin & de Gelder, 1997;Nittrouer & Miller, 1999), auditory presentation and verbal recall (McDougall & Donohoe, 2002) as well as visual presentation and visual recall (Irausquin & de Gelder, 1997).…”

“…However, in a study not referred to in the above-mentioned papers, contrasting results had previously been reported. Using both auditory and pictorial presentation and a nonverbal recall procedure (picture sorting), Irausquin and de Gelder (1997) found significant word length and phonological similarity effects in poor readers which did not differ from those of the reading age and chronological age controls. Thus, the poor readers seemed to use phonological strategies to the same extent as the normal readers, even in a condition where visual coding is most obvious (that is, pictorial presentation and nonverbal recall).…”

“…Thus, the maximum memory score for each item condition was 16 (4items  4trials). This measure has been used in most studies in this field where fixed list lengths were used instead of a stepwise span procedure (Hall et al, 1983;Holligan & Johnston, 1988;Irausquin & de Gelder, 1997;Nittrouer & Miller, 1999), with the exception of McNeil and Johnston (2004). These authors used four-item lists and number of sequences recalled completely correctly.…”

“…Because of important methodological differences, the reasons for these discrepancies are difficult to explain. For example, McNeil and Johnston (2004) used four-item lists and took number of sequences correctly recalled as performance measure, whereas Irausquin and de Gelder (1997) used six-item lists for roughly the same age group and proportion correct per serial position as dependent variable. Furthermore, Irausquin and de Gelder's (1997) participant groups were equated for digit span.…”

“…For example, McNeil and Johnston (2004) used four-item lists and took number of sequences correctly recalled as performance measure, whereas Irausquin and de Gelder (1997) used six-item lists for roughly the same age group and proportion correct per serial position as dependent variable. Furthermore, Irausquin and de Gelder's (1997) participant groups were equated for digit span. Since poor readers normally show reduced spans relative to chronological age controls, the results concerning word length and phonological similarity effects may not be representative for poor readers as a group.…”