Phonemic processing problems in developmental phonological dyslexia

Abstract

The phonemic discrimination of subjects with developmental dyslexia was investigated in the present study. Two adult developmental phonological dyslexics are first reported. Both were good at reading real words but had difficulty reading and spelling novel stimuli. Further testing revealed a perceptual discrimination problem that was restricted to a narrow range of phonemes in both subjects. In order to test the generality of this finding, 20 further developmental dyslexics were tested on their nonword reading skill and phonemic discrimination ability. There was a significant association between the two variables…subjects poor at phonemic discrimination were also very likely to be poor at nonword reading. It is suggested that phonemic discrimination problems at an early age may disrupt the normal acquisition of alphabetic processing skills for reading and spelling. Remedial implications of the findings are discussed.