Evaluation of lexically and nonlexically based reading treatment in a deep dyslexic

Abstract

The aim of the single case study was to evaluate two different treatment procedures to improve reading skills with a German-speaking deep dyslexic. Generally, in treatment studies for deep dyslexia, retraining of grapheme–phoneme correspondences is described, but hardly any treatment focuses on reactivating residual functions of the semantic–lexical route. This strategy was explored here with an experimentally presented priming paradigm, to implicitly strengthen residual skills of lexical access with semantically/phonologically related primes (lexically based treatment). In contrast, grapheme–phoneme associations and blending were explicitly relearned during a nonlexically based treatment. Stimuli were controlled for part of speech, word length, and frequency. A cross-over design to identify item- and treatment-specific effects for both procedures was applied. Results indicate positive outcomes with respect to treatment-specific effects for both procedures, generalization to untrained items, and a transfer task after the nonlexically based procedure. All effects remained stable in the follow-up assessment. Implications for theoretically/empirically generated expectations about treatment outcomes are discussed.