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Talk; Adults

Thursday stream 5 Session 09.00 - 11.10 Length 50 minutes

Individual Differences in Reading Comprehension in Adult Dyslexics

John Everatt, Claire Zabell and Peter Brooks.

University of Surrey. j.everatt@surrey.ac.uk

Abstract

Although dyslexia is not confined to childhood, the specific nature of the problems presented by the dyslexic may alter with age. For example, the single word reading deficits displayed in childhood are often masked or compensated for in adults. However, research suggests that reading comprehension difficulties may remain particularly problematic for adult dyslexics and present a distinguishing factor between dyslexics and controls. The present study investigated the relative contribution of factors such as single word processing, word knowledge, phonological awareness, memory, visual processes and general ability, to performance on measures of reading comprehension. Differences identified between adult dyslexic and control students will be discussed, and a series of regression analyses assessing the amount of variance in comprehension scores predicted by individual, and/or combinations of factors will be reported. It is concluded that (1) comprehension deficits do occur in adult dyslexics over and above their single word reading deficits and (2) dyslexic's comprehension ability is best predicted by measures of phonological awareness and processing speed.