Adequate Readers Research Articles

Saccades as Related to Reading Disorders

A group of inadequate readers was compared with adequate readers on measures of saccadic eye movements. Saccades are discussed as a possible contributing cause of reading problems rather than the traditional view that they are primarily or solely the result of reading experience. Nonreading as well as reading materials and tasks were used. On all nonreading and reading materials the inadequate readers tended to make more regressions and fewer forward fixations. The inadequate readers were heterogeneous; two subgroups involving micro-sequencing evolved. Implications and procedures for saccadic diagnosis are discussed.

Perceptual Integration and Reading Problems

From the notion that reading is a process of continuous intersensory integrations of visual-tactual-kinesthetic information, it was hypothesized that deficits at the automatic sequential level of the ITPA primarily affect this integrative process. Thus, measures of visual-tactual-kinesthetic integration should discriminate between adequate and inadequate readers. An extensive test battery was administered to 40 matched pairs of adequate and inadequate readers in the second and third grades in two conmmnities. Significant differences between communities and between sexes were found. Insufficient support for the hypothesis was obtained.

Performance of retarded readers on the Memory-For-Designs test.

54 retarded readers of at least average IQ (Retardeds) and 54 adequate readers (Controls) aged 6.5 to 12.5 yr. were administered the MFD. This was scored (i) according to the standard Graham and Kendall system and (ii) according to a new system which took into account all errors of displacement, omission, and addition. Both methods discriminated significantly between the groups, the standard scoring system being somewhat better than the new system. Discrimination was maintained after adjustments for IQ differences were made. The results suggest that reading retardation may be a symptom of minimal cerebral dysfunction.

Young Adults Ten to Fifteen Years after Severe Reading Disability

(1). In general, these individuals, who had had severe reading disability, made measurable gains while in remedial instruction: 70 per cent graduated from elementary school and 20 per cent from high school. According to the author, post-high-school education was not a realistic goal for these pupils. In a twelve-year follow-up study, Silver and Hagin reported on the perceptual, psychological, and cognitive status of twenty-five children with severe reading disability initially studied at the Bellevue Hospital Mental Hygiene Clinic (2). As young adults, these once disabled readers were found to still have psychological signs of neurological difficulty, including specific problems in visual and tactile perception. Adults who, as children, had had difficulty on the classical neurological examination were compared with adults who had shown only psychological signs of neurological involvement; the latter group showed greater improvement in reading. In addition, those who were found to be adequate adult readers had been the least seri-