home . search . contact   index by author chronological index

- abstract below
- a PowerPoint presentation is available on the conference CD.
For details of how to obtain the CD, please contact the BDA.

Visual-Attentional vs phonological deficits in developmental dyslexia

Marie-line Bosse and Sylviane Valdois

Universite Pierre Mendes, Grenoble, France Marie-Line.Bosse@ac-grenoble.fr

Abstract

The connectionist model of reading of Ans, Carbonnel and Valdois (1998) postulates the existence of two distinct reading procedures that only differ in the kind of visual-attentional (VA) processing they involve. Within this framework, developmental dyslexia is interpreted as resulting from either a phonological disorder or a visual-attentional processing deficit. Our aim was to test the hypothesis of a dissociation between phonological and VA disorders in developmental dyslexia. A group of 154 French participants (dyslexics, chronological-age and reading-age matched controls) were submitted to metaphonological and VA tasks. A principal component analysis extracted 3 orthogonal factors (VA, phonological, age). Four subgroups of dyslexic children emerged that were characterised by: 1) a phonological disorder in the absence of VA deficit; 2) a VA deficit in the absence of phonological trouble; 3) both disorders and 4) none of these two disorders. Comparisons of the reading performance of each group revealed that similar reading profiles can result from different cognitive deficits (phonological vs. visual-attentional). We suggest that methods of dyslexic classification using reading performance might mix in the same subgroup dyslexics with different cognitive deficits. Multiple regressions showed that the level of VA performance was predictive of the reading level even when the influence of metaphonological skills was partialled out. The research was replicated with English participants. Results confirmed the existence of an isolated VA processing deficit on a dyslexic subgroup. This subgroup can not be isolated from reading performances.

Disclaimer: all the abstracts presented here have satisfied the academic committee as appropriate for presentation at an international conference. However, the material reflects the views of the authors, not necessarily those of the academic committee or the BDA. No endorsement of any approach, product or service is intended or implied.

home . search . contact . index by author . chronological index