Letter Naming and Letter Writing Reversals in Children With Dyslexia: Momentary Inefficiency in the Phonological and Orthographic Loops of Working Memory

Abstract

Given mounting evidence for working memory impairments in dyslexia, letter reversals during rapid automatic letter naming (phonological loop) or rapid automatic letter writing (orthographic loop) may reflect momentary inefficiency of working memory. Few of the children, with or without dyslexia, in a multi-generational family genetics study, produced reversals, but those with dyslexia produced more than those without dyslexia. Working-memory component predictors (word storing and processing units, phonological and orthographic loops, and executive functions) in regressions differentiated children with dyslexia (average age 11) who did and did not make reversals, predicted the number of reversals on specific letter naming or letter writing tasks, and explained unique variance in reading and writing outcomes. Although reversals are not a hallmark defining feature of dyslexia, children who produce reversals may benefit from instruction designed to develop specific working memory components and their efficient coordination in time.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This article is based on the dissertation of the first author and a presentation by the first author at the International Dyslexia Association in November 2003 in San Diego in a symposium organized by Virginia Berninger and Maryanne Wolf: “Temporal Coordination of Orthographic, Phonological, and Morphological Word Forms and Other Levels of Language in Working Memory of the Reading Brain: Developmental and Instructional Perspectives on The Real Whole Language.”

Notes

Grants P50 33812 and HD 25858 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) supported this research.

¹This task is a prepublication version of the PAL Alphabet Writing Task (Berninger, 2001), which was revised in 2007 (Berninger, 2007).

²PAL II (Berninger, 2007) has baseline rates for making letter writing reversals (and sustaining oral naming across rows of RAN and RAS) and other kinds of non-reversal errors, based on national norming samples during standardization.

³ Dahl (1991) donated the proceeds of the Vicar of Nibleswick, his last book, to the British Dyslexia Society.