Reading and phonological awareness in reading-disabled adults

Sixty-eight students with reading disabilities (RDs) and 55 non-reading-disabled university undergraduates composed the sample. Students with RDs met either low achievement (LA) or regression-based discrepancy (D) criteria. In addition to IQ and reading decoding measures, all participants received measures of phonological awareness (PA), confrontation naming, and verbal fluency. Consistent with expectations, the D and LA subgroups did not differ from one another, and both performed worse than students without RD on phonological measures. However, only the LA subgroup performed worse on measures of confrontation naming and verbal fluency. Subgroups of readers who had LA without an IQ-achievement discrepancy (LA-no D) and readers who had both LA and a discrepancy (LA + D), performed worse than readers who had a discrepancy but whose reading achievement was above the 16th percentile (D-no LA) on measures of PA, naming, and fluency; this subgroup did not differ from students without RDs. These results question the utility of determining RD in adults solely on the basis of IQ-achievement discrepancy criterion without regard to other linguistic skills or absolute reading level.