Previous studies exploring the cost of reading sentences with words that have two transposed letters in adults showed that initial letter transpositions caused the most disruption to reading, indicating the important role that initial letters play in lexical identification (e.g., Rayner et al., 2006). Regarding children, it is not clear whether…

In this chapter, we examine adult- and child-focused models of reading with respect to cognitive processing deficits associated with low literacy. We examine influential integrative models of reading and reading comprehension. We then review the empirical literature on components of reading ability, subdivided into three categories: language…

Purpose: To investigate processing speed as a latent dimension in children with dyslexia and children and adults with typical reading skills. Method: Exploratory factor analysis (FA) was based on a sample of multigenerational families, each ascertained through a child with dyslexia. Eleven measures--6 of them timed--represented verbal and…

The purpose of this study was to identify and examine effective reading strategies used by adult deaf readers compared with student deaf readers. There were a total of 11 participants: 5 deaf adults ranging from 27 to 36 years and 6 deaf students ranging from 16 to 20 years. Assessment methods included interview and think-aloud procedures in which…

In this study of the project DyAdd, three aspects of visual attention were investigated in adults (18-55 years) with dyslexia (n = 35) or attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD, n = 22), and in healthy controls (n = 35). Temporal characteristics of visual attention were assessed with Attentional Blink (AB), capacity of visual attention…

We report a study that investigated the widely held belief that naming-speed deficits in developmental dyslexia reflect impaired access to lexical-phonological codes. To investigate this issue, we compared adult dyslexic and adult non-dyslexic readers' performance when naming and semantically categorizing arrays of objects. Dyslexic readers…

Among the cognitive causes of dyslexia, phonological and magnocellular deficits have attracted a substantial amount of research. Their role and their exact impact on reading ability are still a matter of debate, partly also because large samples of dyslexics are hard to recruit. Here, we report a new technique to simulate dyslexic symptoms in…

The ability to learn visual-phonological associations is a unique predictor of word reading, and individuals with developmental dyslexia show impaired ability in learning these associations. In this study, we compared developmentally dyslexic and nondyslexic adults on their ability to form cross-modal associations (or "bindings") based…

Natural reading development gradually builds up to the adult vocabulary over a period of years. This has an effect on lexical processing: early-acquired words are processed more quickly and more accurately than later-acquired words. We present a connectionist model of reading, learning to map orthography onto phonology to simulate this natural…

Developmental dyslexia is often characterized by a visual deficit, but the nature of this impairment and how it relates to reading ability is disputed ("Brain" 2003; "126": 841-865). In order to investigate this issue, we compared groups of adults with and without dyslexia on the Ternus, visual-search and symbols tasks.…

This study, involving adults with and without mental retardation and mental age-matched children, employed a lateralized presentation of Stroop color words, neutral words, and the subject's first name. Individuals with mental retardation experienced difficulty in effortful processing (inhibiting the reading response on the Stroop trials) and in…

Early and late first-grade children, third-grade poor and good readers, and adults named pictures under several interference conditions: with embedded intracategory or extracategory words, pronounceable or nonpronounceable letter strings, and visual noise. (Author/JMB)

Presents results from a study that used an intensive design approach to investigate cognitive aspects of fluent reading. Cites data from the study to illustrate the advantages of the methodology for monitoring intrasubject variability in text processing. (FL)

Fourth and sixth graders and adults read words preceded by either a congruous, incongruous, or no-sentence context, and then completed another task where they named the color of the target word. Results suggested that context effects are mediated by automatic processes which decrease in importance with age and reading ability. (Author/JMB)

A study examined how the text variables of organizational plan (top-level structure), emphasis plan (implemented through signalling devices), and presence of details influenced the selection of reading strategies by adults. Subjects--149 young, middle aged, and older expert readers--read and recalled in writing two expository prose passages of 388…