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Orthographic analogies and developmental dyslexia
J R Hanley1, C J Reynolds, A Thornton
1Department of Psychology, University of Liverpool, UK.
British Journal of Psychology (London, England : 1953)
|August 1, 1997
Summary
Children with developmental dyslexia struggle with reading new words. This study found dyslexic children have difficulty using orthographic analogies, a reading strategy typically used by younger children, suggesting this may cause reading impairment.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Developmental Psychology
- Educational Psychology
Background:
- Children utilize orthographic analogies for decoding new words, a skill observed in six-year-olds.
- Developmental dyslexia impairs reading acquisition, particularly for unfamiliar words.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if children with developmental dyslexia can use orthographic analogies for word decoding.
- To determine if a difficulty in analogical transfer contributes to reading impairment in dyslexia.
Main Methods:
- Two experiments adapted Goswami's (1988) and Muter et al.'s (1994) designs.
- Participants included children with developmental dyslexia and a reading age-matched control group.
- Children were tested on their ability to decode words using analogical reasoning from 'clue' words.
Main Results:
- Dyslexic children read significantly fewer analogous words compared to controls in both experiments.
- No dyslexic child matched the performance of the lowest-scoring control child in analogical word reading.
- Analogous word reading in dyslexic children correlated with rhyme detection ability.
Conclusions:
- Children with developmental dyslexia exhibit a significant deficit in using orthographic analogies for decoding.
- This failure to make analogies is proposed as a primary cause of reading impairment in developmental dyslexia.
- The findings highlight the importance of analogical reasoning skills in reading development.