Pragmatic abilities in adults with and without dyslexia: a pilot study

Abstract

This study examines well-compensated adults with dyslexia to see if they experience more problems with pragmatic awareness than the normal population. Social interaction requires an individual to process language at speed by using working memory efficiently, in order to understand the intended, rather than literal, meaning between speaker and hearer. Previous studies have shown evidence amongst the dyslexic population of poor working memory capacity, slower speed of processing and automatization deficit. It is proposed that a dyslexic may not be able to interpret pragmatic content as efficiently as non-dyslexics, due to the need for fast processing in such circumstances, resulting in resource overload and over-intensity of memory. The study compares the score results of 20 dyslexic and 20 non-dyslexic adults on the Dyslexia Adult Screening Test (DAST), the Right Hemisphere Language Battery and the author's own pragmatic competence questionnaire. The results for all three measures indicate a statistically significant difference in pragmatic competence between the two groups and appear to demonstrate a correlation between dyslexia and pragmatic impairment. Consideration of individual subtest items on the DAST lend support to the argument that this may be due to deficits in working memory, processing and automatization.