Dissociation between comprehension and pronunciation in dyslexic and hyperlexic children

Abstract

Findings from an analysis of the reading performances of three reading-disabled children provide a tentative answer to the controversial issue whether reading-disabled children have a language comprehension deficit or not. Of the three reading-disabled children studied, two were poor in language comprehension but had much better word-reading skill. In this paper, phrases such as \ldword reading\rd, \ldpronunciation\rd, and \rdreading aloud\rd are used interchangeably to refer to the ability to read aloud the written word. The term \lddecoding\rd is used when reading aloud is accomplished by applying spelling-to-sound rules. The third disabled reader had superior listening comprehension but was poor in word-reading skill. The two good word-readers appear to use two different strategies, viz., grapheme—sound association and whole word-pronunciation asssociation to pronounce the written word. It is concluded that pronunciation and comprehension skills are two dissociable components of the reading process and that they follow separate courses of development. Case studies presented in this paper suggest that these two components can be affected independent of each other resulting in different types of reading disabilities. It is concluded that answer to the question whether poor readers are also deficient in language comprehension depends on the type of disabled readers investigated even though educational experience and severity of the reading problem can act as confounding factors.