Sensibilité à la similarité phonétique chez les enfants dyslexiques et les bons lecteurs

Abstract

Summary : Sensitivity to phonetic similarity in dyslexies and good readers. The importance of the articulatory rehearsal loop in working memory and in reading activity makes it possible to consider two ways of determining reading difficultes : in the first it is thought that a deficiency in working memory accounts for developmental dyslexia (Jorm, 1983) ; whereas the second theory points more to linguistic deficiency, particularly at the phonological level (Liberman et Shankweiler, 1980). Where these two theoretical perspectives clash more particularly, would be in the effect of phonological similarity in immediate memory. In the first case, no interaction is predicted between groups of subjects (good and retarded readers) and types of material (rhyming and non-rhyming), whereas in the second case, an interaction is predicted. In the first experiment, the author compares performances of retarded and good readers, at an equivalent chronological age in this type of assignment. He shows : 1) that retarded readers have, on average, poorer results than good readers in the immediate memory task ; 2) that the effect of rhyme is present in both groups (no interaction between groups and types of material) ; 3) that, on average, this effect of rhyme is greater among retarded readers than among good readers ; 4) that, whereas there are readers whose development is 2 years behind others in the memory task, their late development is as much as 4 years in a task of substracting syllables or phonemes. In the second experiment, the author compares the same type of subjects carrying out the same tasks but at an equivalent reading age. He shows in this case : 1) that the inferiority of bad readers, whatever the type of material, in working memory, disappears ; 2) that the effect of rhyme continues, but it is present specially among bad readers ; 3) that the performance of bad readers remains far below that of good readers in a task of substracting syllables or phonemes. It is thought that these results can provide indications on the one hand as to the direction of causality, and on other hand on the relations existing between phonological competence and immediate memory. Key words : reading, developmental dyslexia, working memory.