The Cognitive Profiles of Poor Readers/Good Spellers and Good Readers/Poor Spellers in a Consistent Orthography: A Retrospective Analysis

Abstract

Abstract. Reading and spelling are closely related to each other, but empirical evidence shows that they can also dissociate. The purpose of this study was to examine the cognitive profiles of good readers/poor spellers and poor readers/good spellers in a relatively consistent orthography (Greek). One hundred forty children were administered measures of phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, phonological short-term memory, and orthographic knowledge in grades 1 and 2. Their performance in reading and spelling was assessed in grade 4. Two small groups of children exhibited a dissociation between reading and spelling: seven children were identified as poor readers/good spellers and 11 children as good readers/poor spellers. The former group experienced severe deficits in both rapid naming and phonological awareness. The latter group experienced mild deficits only in orthographic knowledge. Although inefficient orthographic knowledge affects their spelling accuracy (Greek is inconsistent in the direction of spelling), it does not impact their reading fluency because they can recognize words by relying on partial cues.

The Heterogeneity of Reading-Related Difficulties in Chinese

“…As expected, Manolitsis and Georgiou [46] found more SD (8.1%) than RD (5.1%) in their sample of native Greek-speaking children. However, the estimated prevalence rates of SD and RD were comparable in Moll and Landerl's [47] [41,46]. Although a larger discrepancy is observed between forward and backward regularity in German, a smaller difference has found between the estimated prevalence rates of SD and RD in German-speaking samples.…”

“…Although a larger discrepancy is observed between forward and backward regularity in German, a smaller difference has found between the estimated prevalence rates of SD and RD in German-speaking samples. Such observation does not fully support the hypothesis of Manolitsis and Georgiou [46] that difference in forward and backward regularity has a direct relationship with the resulting prevalence of dissociated difficulties. While the effect of orthographic depth on reading and spelling dissociation is inconclusive, it is evident that much lesser is known about orthographically opaque languages.…”

“…Reading is argued to be easier than spelling in these languages because of such asymmetry between forward and backward regularity [45]. As expected, Manolitsis and Georgiou [46] found more SD (8.1%) than RD (5.1%) in their sample of native Greek-speaking children. However, the estimated prevalence rates of SD and RD were comparable in Moll and Landerl's [47] [41,46].…”

Reading and Spelling Development Across Languages Varying in Orthographic Consistency: Do Their Paths Cross?

“…On the other hand, children can probably read accurately a word (e.g., bread), even if they do not have access to a precise orthographic representation (e.g., bred). 5 Evidence in support of this argument can be drawn also from studies examining the double dissociation between reading and spelling (e.g., Frith, 1980;Manolitsis & Georgiou, 2015;Moll & Landerl, 2009). Frith (1980) was the first to report a group of children who were adequate readers but "atrocious" spellers.…”

Reading-related functional activity in children with isolated spelling deficits and dyslexia

“…A consistent finding is that the reading fluency problems experienced by children with dyslexia in transparent orthographies are related to visual-verbal processing deficits, as measured by rapid naming tasks requiring children to name aloud a series of elements as for example objects, colours, letters or digits as accurately and quickly as possible. In contrast, visual-verbal processing deficits are not usually observed in children with SpD ( Bar-Kochva & Amiel, 2016;Gangl, Moll, Jones, et al, 2018;Manolitsis & Georgiou, 2015;Moll & Landerl, 2009;Torppa et al, 2017;Wimmer & Mayringer, 2002). Evidence on phonological processing deficits (indicating problems in the manipulation of phonemes) is less straightforward, as some studies reported them not only for dyslexia, but also for SpD (Bar-Kochva & Amiel, 2016;Fayol et al, 2009;Torppa et al, 2017;Wimmer & Mayringer, 2002), while others found only mild or no phonological impairments Manolitsis & Georgiou, 2015;Moll & Landerl, 2009).…”