Working Memory Limitation, Phonological Deficit, Sequential Disorder and Syntactic Impairment in a Child with a Severe Developmental Dyslexia

Abstract

The paper presents a case study of a child with a severe dyslexia, and focuses on the relationships between syntactic impairment, verbal memory limitation, sequential disorder and phonological deficit in his performance. These failures interacted very closely in his profile. An interesting and critical feature in the child's linguistic performance was the similarity between the pattern of syntactic errors displayed by him in sentence repetition and his syntactic performance in narrative productions elicited by a picture book. Comparisons between tasks requiring different levels of syntactic complexity and involving different memory demands suggested that he had a phonological/sequential/working memory impairment and a syntactic disorder. The complex interaction between phonological, syntactic and working memory deficits resulted in a severe learning disorder. The case study also suggests difficulties in the acquisition and the use of abstract linguistic elements. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.