The nonword reading deficit in developmental dyslexia: evidence from children learning to read German

This study examined whether dyslexic children learning to read German show the same nonword reading deficit, which is characteristic of dyslexic children learning to read English (Rack, Olson, & Snowling, 1992), a deficit which is taken as evidence for a phonological impairment underlying dyslexia. Because the German writing system, in contrast to English, exhibits comparatively simple and straightforward grapheme-phoneme correspondences, the generality of the nonword reading deficit across different alphabetic systems seemed questionable. Actually, it was found that 10-year-old dyslexic children learning to read German exhibited rather high reading accuracy for nonwords when compared to that typically found among dyslexic children learning to read English. Nevertheless, the children learning German did exhibit a nonword reading deficit. Specifically, their speed for nonwords was impaired in relation to younger control (nondyslexic) children matched on reading speed for frequent words. This nonword reading deficit was observed for nonwords with little similarity to existing German words as well as for nonwords which were analogous to short, frequent content words. It is hypothesized that dyslexic children learning German do not differ from dyslexic children learning English in their underlying phonological impairment, but that they do differ with respect to the expression of this impairment.