Word Identification Abilities of Severely Disabled Readers: A Comparison in Isolation and Context

Abstract

Examines the strong vs. weak relationships between word recognition in isolation and in context hypotheses. Reports a lack of specific relationships for a group of severely disabled readers. Although the performance on these tasks was correlated at .68, a detailed analysis of individual performances demonstrated the inconsistent and idiosyncratic nature of the responses. The data, while not as clearcut as some reported earlier, seem nevertheless to support the weak relationship argument. In addition, two distinct types of disabled readers emerged from the analysis (those whose word recognition was superior in isolation and those whose word recognition was superior in context). Examination of individual response patterns suggest many traditional diagnostic assessment procedures may provide little useful information for instructional decisions.