From Neuropsychological Data to Reading Mechanisms

Abstract

We will review, from a psycholinguistic standpoint, the two basic acquired dyslexic syndromes, namely deep dyslexia and surface dyslexia. A description, as emerging from current literature as well as from personal observations will be given. The syndrome will be tentatively interpreted in the framework of information processing reading aloud models. We will comment on and suggest an alternative approach, emphasizing that most reading impairments seem rather to reflect general (modality-free) deep understanding mechanisms than specific reading aloud processes.