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Exploring the consequences of impoverished phonological representations: The role of Learning Context

Peter F. de Jong and Vera C. S. Messbauer

University of Amsterdam pfdejong@educ.uva.nl

Abstract

One of the major explanations for dyslexia is a deficit in the representation of speech. Low quality or impoverished phonological representations are believed to underlie dyslexic's poor performance found on many measures of phonological processing known to be related to reading acquisition. In this study, we explored the direct effects of the quality of phonological representations on the acquisition of orthographic knowledge. We hypothesized that low quality representations especially pose problems in the case where words have to be learned in a context of phonologically and orthographically similar words. Thus, we hypothesized that the acquisition of KLAP is more difficult for dyslexic children when KRAP and KLAS have to be learned at the same time (an indistinct context), than when it is accompanied by STUK and PLOF (a distinct context). To test this hypothesis, dyslexic children and groups of reading and age-matched normal readers repeatedly read a series of target nonwords, presented in a distinct and an indistinct context. At post test, one day and one week later, the children read the target nonwords and new nonwords meant to study transfer effects. Preliminary analyses of the data tended to show similar effects of context in all reading groups.

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