Visual and auditory processing and component reading skills in developmental dyslexia

Abstract

Previous research suggests that children with developmental dyslexia have low-level visual and auditory deficits. The present study further examines these proposed deficits and how they relate to component reading skills. Children with dyslexia and control children were administered measures of visual and auditory processing and a battery of reading tasks, including nonword and irregular-word reading, as measures of phonological and orthographic skills. Significant group differences were found on all visual and auditory tasks. However, at an individual level only a minority of dyslexics had visual and auditory deficits. In both dyslexics and controls, visual processing was not related to component reading skills, while weak associations were found between auditory processing and phonological decoding skills. The results of the present study suggest that dyslexia is not characterized by core deficits in visual and auditory processing. The results are discussed in terms of a general nonsensory problem with task completion.

The authors would like to thank all the children and families for giving up their time to be involved in this study. We would also like to thank those who helped with the recruiting process: Dyslexia-SPELD Foundation, The University of Western Australia Child Study Centre Clinic, Wembley Primary School, Spearwood Alternative School, Shelley Farrow, Elize De Rooster, Anne Nicholls, and Barbara Pocklington.

Notes

¹ These are based on a difference between z scores on the irregular-word and nonword reading list equalling or exceeding 0.5 standard deviations when performing below average on at least one of the lists (z ≤ −1.64). A negative difference indicates poor irregular-word reading (i.e., surface dyslexic), while a positive difference indicates poor nonword reading (i.e., phonological dyslexic).