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Word recognition processes of poor and disabled readers: Do they necessarily differ?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Mark S. Seidenberg,
Margaret Bruck,
Gail Fornarolo and
Joan Backman
Mark S. Seidenberg*
Affiliation:
McGill University
Margaret Bruck
Affiliation:
McGill University
Gail Fornarolo
Affiliation:
McGill University
Joan Backman
Affiliation:
Izaak Walton Killam Hospital for Children
*
M. S. Seidenberg, Psychology Department, McGill University, 1205 Docteur Penfield, Montreal, PQ, CanadaH3A 1B1
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Abstract

Children assessed as reading disabled are often thought to use decoding processes that differ from those of nondisabled children. This assumption was examined in a study that compared the word recognition skills of a group of clinic-diagnosed reading disabled children with those of good and poor readers. Subjects read words and nonwords containing either regular or homographic spelling patterns. Regular patterns have a single pronunciation (e.g., -UST) while homographic patterns have multiple pronunciations (e.g., -ONE). Analyses of the errors, latencies, and types of pronunciations indicated that while the performance of the poor and disabled readers differed from that of the good readers, the two below-average reader groups were very similar. The reading disabled children exhibited decoding processes similar to those exhibited by younger nondisabled readers. The results suggest that many children who meet the diagnostic criteria for reading disability may be indistinguishable from nondisabled children in terms of actual reading performance.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , June 1985, pp. 161 - 180
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

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References

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