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Phonological and surface subtypes in adults with developmental dyslexia and dysgraphia: Exploring the cognitive causes

Christina Romani and A. M di Betta

Aston University C.Romani@aston.ac.uk

Abstract

Our study investigates whether different cognitive profiles characterize adults with different types of orthographic impairment (surface vs. phonological subtype). We differentiated two subgroups using a measure of the ability to use conversion rules based on proportion of errors on irregular words and proportion of phonologically plausible errors made in spelling. This measure correlated strongly with non-words spelling and reading and less strongly with word spelling and reading. Individuals with good conversion rules performed better than those with poor conversion rules on tasks tapping phonological awareness and short-term memory, but similarly on tasks tapping the learning of new words (lexical learning). We hypothesise that phonological abilities and lexical learning both contribute to modulate the severity of dyslexia/dysgraphia and that, when impaired, they produce different varieties of reading/spelling disorders. The validity of our measure compared to others already used in the literature (Castles & Coltheart's regression analyses) will be also considered.

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