Preliminary findings concerning the effects of specialized teaching on dyslexic children

APPLIED COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY, VOL. 2, 19-31 (1988)

Preliminary Findings Concerning the Effects of Specialized Teaching on Dyslexic Children

MICHAEL THOMSON East Court School for Dyslexic Children, Victoria Parade, Ramsgate, Kent CTI l 8ED, U. K.

SUMMARY Some of the recent cognitive research on phonemic awareness and phonological skills in short-term memory of dyslexic children is related to the development of specific teaching programmes aimed at circumventing theoretical ‘deficits’. Data on a 2-year follow-up of the reading attainments of dyslexic children are presented, along with data on reading and spelling of non-words, multi-syllable words and words learned under visual inspection versus simultaneous oral spelling conditions. Dyslexia is viewed as a developmental phenomenon, with children’s performance changing over time.

There has recently been much research on short-term memory, naming, coding and phonological processing in the dyslexic child (see Thomson, 1984, for a review), but little has been either longitudinal or based on what actually happens when dyslexic children are taught specific sub-skills of reading and spelling. Following a brief review of relevant literature this paper presents three classroom studies examining the applications of some of the theoretical points raised to the practice of remediation.

The interrelationships between short-term memory, coding, and phonological skills are important elements of theoretical research. For example, Shankweiler, Liberman, Mark, Fowler and Fischer (1979) and Mann, Liberman and Shankweiler (1980), argued that there are no memory differences between good and poor readers in non-linguistic information, but poor readers did not do so well in the use of phonetic codes in short-term memory. Rack (1985) extended this further by looking at rhyme judgement and cued recall of pairs of words that were rhyming but phonographically similar or dissimilar. Some words were non-rhyming but orthographically similar. He found dyslexics as accurate as the control groups in general, but slower. However, there was a greater orthographic effect amongst the dyslexics; they appeared to use more of an orthographic code as opposed to a phonetic one. He argued they had less access to phonological code in memory and thus used increased visual or orthographic codes to compensate. Jorm (1979) suggests that access to written words may follow a phonological route, based on grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules, or a semantic route, going directly from visual input to meaning. He argues that phonological recoding difficulties reflect some basic cognitive disability in either the auditorylverbal or the visual information short-term store, or perhaps both, although Shankweiler et al. (1979) suggest the auditory-verbal short-term store as a possibility.

0888-4080/88/010019-14$07.00 0 1988 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Received 10 November 1986 Revised 20 May 1987

20 M. Thornson

Another important aspect of reading is phonemic segmentation. Liberman and Shankweiler (1978), Liberman (1971), Savin (1972) and Rozin and Gleitman (1977) argue that decoding printed symbols and establishing phonetic or sound representations of these symbols are key factors relating to linguistic awareness. Reading is seen as being secondary to spoken language, and in particular it is the explicit knowledge of phonetic structure that is required if one is to match alphabet symbols to sounds. Snowling (1980) gave dyslexics reading and speaking tasks and found that, where they were using nonsense words, the dyslexics were more affected by phonological complexity, and also had difficulties in more complex articulation of two-syllable non-words. Shankweiler and Liberman (1978) indicated that dyslexics made more errors in acoustically confusable or rhyming words, and others-for example Fox and Routh (1980), Legein and Bouma (1981)-have argued for deficits in phonemic analysis. Snowling (1980) presented data which, she argued, indicated that dyslexics were using a mainly grapheme-to-semantic (direct visual) route for reading because they had grapheme-to-phoneme or phonological code difficulties.

Studies on the reading and spelling process itself (e.g. Kendall and Hood, 1979; Shankweiler and Liberman, 1978; Thomson, 1982), show that dyslexics are rather better at reading comprehension than reading accuracy, and have difficulties in the uses of orthographic rules and phonological coding. Also cited is evidence of difficulty in acoustic and phonetic analysis, particularly of segmentation and phonological coding. The implication here is that difficulties do not lie in comprehension and meaning per se. The dyslexic’s problem seems to relate to the differences between written and spoken language.

Frith (1985) suggests that the child passes through three phases in the development of written language skills-the logographic, the alphabetic and the orthographic. The logographic involves visual processing, whereby words that look alike may be confused. This process is similar to the child learning names for pictures. The next stage, alphabetic skills, is needed for spelling and involves the relationship between sounds and letters, the concepts of phonemic awareness, segmentation and phonological coding, previously discussed. In order to transfer these strategies to the reading situation, in the form of word attack skills, it is necessary to remember the order and sequence of sound segments in the reading and spelling process. Frith argues that developmental dyslexia reflects a failure to reach this alphabetic phase. Finally, the orthographic phase characterizes adult literacy. This involves the access to, and abstract representation of, the printed word, possibly amalgamating both logographic and alphabetic skills. Here representations exist, independent of sound, in which the prior alphabetic stage is already being incorporated.

There now follow three studies examining some of the above concepts and research perspectives in a specialized school, East Court, Ramsgate, for dyslexic children. It is worth noting in passing that teaching children daily, and in a residential setting, presents rather different problems from those that academic cognitive research has pinpointed. A clear clinical observation is the generally weak short-term memory of the children. This is evident in a variety of situations, e.g. following a series of instructions, remembering spelling patterns and classroom activities from day to day; or remembering a simple word or flash card over a minute or two. Also of note is the general problem of personal organization. That

Specialized Teaching and Dyslexic Children 21

is, for example, being aware of time of day and the next lesson; filing and sorting classwork; keeping clothes and living areas tidy; structuring and planning essays, homework and day-to-day activities. These problems of dyslexic children are difficult to quantify and yet are one of their most striking characteristics. All of the children attending the school used in these studies are of average or above average intelligence.

The first study examined the effects of a phonetically based teaching programme on the reading and spelling attainments of dyslexic children.

The second study examined the particular reading and spelling strategies used by the children, in relation to phonological and orthographic codes and syllable analysis, and the effect of remedial help on the child’s coding and phonological skills.

The third study examined the teaching of spelling using two different strategies.

STUDY 1

This study outlines the results of attainment testing over a 2-year and 3-year period, following up children who attended East Court School for their specific learning difficulties. There are broadly two approaches one can take to dyslexic problems - to try to teach to strengths or to weaknesses. The former implies that one circumvents deficit. To some extent both teaching methods were used. Children are encouraged to develop alternative strategies in reading and spelling, e.g. reading for meaning, the so-called ‘linguistic approach’ by use of cloze procedures, simple comprehension exercises, and so on.

However, the major programme was based on phonetic principles: that is, sound-symbol correspondences, spelling-word patterns and orthographic rules. The programme was structured, sequential and cumulative. This implies a systematic teaching of written language starting at the level appropriate for the individual child. ‘Overlearning’-that is the same material being presented in different ways -was a key feature, as was continued repetition and revision. The principles taught included the relationship between word patterns and speech, and orthography or spelling rules. A generalized structure of written language from alphabet, through consonant blends and vowel diagraphs, to syllable division and suffix rules was followed, and, within that, phonics, composition, spelling rules, grammar, handwriting, vocabulary, reading comprehension and other areas of written language were covered. Specific techniques included following speech, ‘phonogram’ unit teaching, tracing, Simultaneous oral spelling, multi-sensory teaching, flash cards and word processing skills.

The relationships, therefore, between speech patterns and orthography, phonological decoding skills and orthographic conventions, were explicitly taught, as were skills such as vowel sound analysis, application of suffix rules, and syllable analysis. Further details of the written language programme at East Court may be obtained from the author.

Subjects

A total of 43 children participated in the study. All were children leaving East Court after at least 1 year attendance at the school. There were five girls and 38

22 M . Thomson

boys, mean age on entering 10 years 3 months (range 9 years 3 months-12 years 1 month), mean age on leaving 12 years 9 months (range 11 years 11 months-13 years 10 months).

Procedure

There are a number of criteria which we might use in evaluating progress. One is the observation of each individual teacher (and parent) that a particular letter pattern has been learned, or an element of written language no longer gives difficulty. This is the criteria-oriented approach. Another set of criteria are the increased self-confidence and higher self-esteem of the child-the happiness they derive from school. These are very important, but, although we and all our parents comment on the improved attitude of the child, they are rather subjective and difficult to evaluate. The most obvious set of criteria for written language are standardized reading and spelling tests that give attainment ages. A number of attainments were given to the subjects on entering East Court, and on leaving. Two examples of attainment test monitoring are shown here, British Ability Scale Word Reading and Vernon Graded Word Spelling.

Results

The data are presented as:

1. A n achievement ratio This looks at the improvement in attainment against time. Thus a so-called ‘normal’ development would be 12 months measured reading improvement in 12 months; thus (12/12) gives an improvement ratio of 1.00. Anything over 1.00 is ‘better than expected’ improvement for the non-dyslexic. Data from clinical studies (Thomson, 1984, 1986) suggest that the dyslexic’s typical improvement ratio is 0.40 in reading (an improvement of only about 5 months in a 12-month period). In spelling the typical ratio is 0.27 (around 3 months’ improvement in 12 months). These ratios are much less than 1 .OO and indicate relatively worsening retardation. One would want to better these ratios to stop this widening gap between age and attainment. An achievement ratio in excess of 1 .OO would begin the ’catching-up’ process.

The reading improvement ratios are shown in Tables 1-3, and are based on the mean of each individual child’s improvement ratio, and not from calculating a ratio based on the mean improvement in each group.

2. Mean improvement The mean attainments are shown for different age groups, and time scales, are also shown in Tables 1-3. The data are shown for three groups who reflect stages of development and entrance to East Court: a younger group, often coming with minimal attainments where groundwork is given; a middle group who consolidate and develop written language; and an older group receiving final ‘boost’. Although these represent 18 months-2 years at East Court (1983-1985), in some cases the results have been obtained from only 1 year at East Court. Further data are shown over a 3-year period. These show only mean ages on entering and leaving East Court for all leavers during the period 1983-1986.


Table 1. Word reading improvement for three age groups

School School entry leaving Improvement age age ratios

Group 1 Chronological age 8 y 8 m 1 0 y l m Word reading age 6 y 2 m 8 y 3 m 1.09

Group 2 Chronological age 1 0 y 9 m 1 2 y 6 m Word reading age 8 y 4 m 1 0 y 8 m 1.60

Group 3 Chronological age 11 y 10 m 1 3 y 4 m Word reading age 9 y 6 m 1 2 y 4 m 1.92

Table 2. Spelling improvement for three age groups School School entry leaving Improvement age age ratios

Group 1 Chronological age 8 y 8 m 1 O y l m Spelling age 6 y 4 m 9 y l m 1.79

Group 2 Chronological age 1 O y 9 m 12y 6 m Spelling age 7 y 9 m 9 y 1 0 m 1.54

Group 3 Chronologicl age 1 1 y 1 0 m 1 3 y 4 m Spelling age 8 y 2 m 11y 6 m 2.60

Table 3. Mean all groups reading and spelling improvement over a 3-year period School School entry leaving Improvement age age ratio

~~~ ~

Chronological 1 0 y 3 m 1 2 y 9 m Reading 8 y 5 m 1 2 y l m 1.46 Spelling 7 y 7 m 1 1 y 5 m 1.53

British Ability Scales Word Reading

This is an individual word reading test in which there are no context clues. Words must be read aloud and mispronunciations are counted as mistakes; thus the test measures word decoding skills. Table 1 shows the development of word reading against age.

24 M . Thomson

Spelling

The Vernon Graded Word Spelling Test involves spelling a series of graded words. These are written down after being spoken in a sentence to give context and then repeated singly. Table 2 shows the development of spelling.

STUDY 2

(Phonological, orthographic and syllable skills of dyslexic children, a cross-sectional study)

Method

Subjects Thirty dyslexic children attending East Court School, 15 who had attended for 2 years (mean age 11 years 9 months, range 10 years 1 month-12 years 3 months), were matched with 15 children who had been at the school for less than 1 month (mean age 11 years 1 month, range 10 years 2 months-12 years 1 month).

Procedure

Children were given a set of words to read and spell as suggested by Snowling, Stackhouse and Rack (1985). These consisted of regular and irregular words, words with varying syllable lengths and non-word reading. It was assumed that the relative performance on regular against irregular words would reflect the ability to use phonological skills in the children. For example, if more regular than irregular word errors were made, it would suggest that the children used phonological skills less proficiently. Although both sets of words could be read by a direct visual approach, only regular words could be handled by a phonological strategy. Regular words included words such as ‘drugs, slot, blade, organ’ and irregular words such as ‘sign, shove, suede, police’ (a full list is available from the author).

Similarly, children were given non-word reading which was based on the concept of ‘lexicality’. In order to read non-words, phonological or grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules must be applied. Here non-words tested the ability of the children to apply common grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules. For example ‘wolt, slove, freath, pettuse’ and other non-words were given. The reading of these non-word items also examined the ability of these children to understand orthographic rules and conventions. In terms of Frith’s notion of developing skills from logographic through alphabetic to orthographic, the ability to read regular versus irregular words examines aspects of logographic and alphabetic skills, and the non-word reading examines aspects of alphabetic and orthographic skills.

In addition to the above, spellings of regular words were given, with various syllable lengths ranging from ‘fish’ through ‘packet’, ‘membership’ and ‘congratulate’. This examines the ability of the children to use and spell words of more than one syllable, although still applying regular grapheme-phoneme correspondence or phonological skills.

These spellings and flash cards for reading were given to children under ‘treatment’ and ‘non-treatment’ conditions. In essence it was a cross-sectional study. Those in the ‘non-treatment’ condition were children who were tested when they first arrived at East Court. Those under the ‘treatment’ condition were those


who had been at East Court for 2 years but were matched with the ‘non-treatment’ group on chronological age.

Results

Tables 4 and 5 show chronological age, reading and spelling attainment, mean scores for various conditions as well as a control group mean obtained from data provided by Snowling er al. (1985) based on children of 10 years chronological age. A two-way ANOVA on the data in Table 5 revealed a difference between regular and irregular words, F(1,29) = 8.12, p < .01. There was also a significant main effect for treatment vs. no-treatment groups, F(1,29) = 5.60, p < .05, but there was no significant interaction. The mean non-words read correctly for ‘lexicality’ for the non-treatment and treatment dyslexics and controls were 8.5, 17 and 28 words, respectively. The difference between the no-treatment and treatment groups was significant, r(29) = 4.81, p < .01. Table 6 shows spelling performance as a function of syllable length for the three groups. A two-way ANOVA on the treatment vs no- treatment groups by syllable length produced significant main effects for treatment, F(1,16) = 10.68,~ < .01 and for syllable length, F(3,16) = 28.72,~ < .01, but there was no significant interaction.

Table 4. Chronological and attainment ages of treatment and no-treatment groups

No-Treatment Treatment Chronological age l l y l m l l y 9 m Reading age (BAS) 8y10m 1 l y O m Spelling age (Vernon) 10 y 3 m 7 y 11 m

Table 5. Mean regular and irregular words correct by dyslexics and 10-year-old controls (max score 31)

No-treatment Treatment Controls Regular 21.0 29.8 29.6 Irregular 12.0 24.0 26.0

Table 6. Mean words varying by syllable length spelt correctly by dyslexics and 10-year-old controls (max score 10)

Syllable length No-treatment Treatment Controls 1 7.6 9.9 Not given

2 2.8 7.8 7.8 3 1.9 4.8 6.3 4 0.6 4.4 4.2

(range 8-10)

26 M. Thomson

STUDY 3 (Comparison of ‘visual’ and ‘simultaneous oral spelling’ techniques, word spelling)

Method

Subjects Twenty dyslexic children at East Court School. Mean ages 11 years 3 months (range 9 years 11 months-12 years 6 months).

Procedure

It has been mentioned above that dyslexics have difficulty in aspects of phonemic awareness and phonological skills, and may tend to use orthographic or visual skills to compensate for this. This sometimes is not so efficient, and the purpose of this study was specifically to examine ways of teaching children words to spell that emphasize particular strategies in their learning. Children were given words that reflected the particular letter pattern that they were learning, for example consonant blends, under three conditions. The first was a baseline measure, children being given a list of words to spell without any form of teaching or learning help. In the second condition children were given lists of equivalent words (i.e. based on similar letter patterns) and asked to look at them, try to remember what they look like and learn them for a spelling test. This was done for the same length of time as method 3 . In the third condition the children were given a list of words which they had to: (i) read and say out loud, (ii) spell out loud letter by letter, (iii) say again and (iv) then write down the words saying each letter as they wrote them. This so-called simultaneous oral spelling technique is a common multi-sensory teaching technique used by those in teaching dyslexics, and the aims are to relate sound to symbol; focus awareness on individual letter sounds; and relate auditory, visual and knesthetic components of spelling. In addition it involves elements of motor skill in the sense of writing the letters, saying them at the same time.

All the children were given the baseline measure first. Half the children were given method 2 first, method 3 next and the other half of the children were given method 3 first and then method 2 next.

Results

The mean words spelled correctly by dyslexics under the three conditions of no learning, visual inspection and simultaneous oral spelling were 12.8, 11.75 and 15.25 words, respectively. This was significant by a one-way ANOVA, F(2,19) = 6.38, p < .01. There were no test order effects.

DISCUSSION

In Study 1 the results of the children’s developing attainments are encouraging and positive. Reading and spelling are not falling further and further behind, as happens with the dyslexic who is not given help. Attainments are developing more quickly than the norm so that the children are now catching up in the sense that the


achievement ratios are greater than 1.00, and much greater than the achievement ratios of dyslexics not given help.

The improved attainments of children receiving intensive help based on an approach designed to overcome phonological weakness and provide grapheme- phoneme correspondence rules indicate that apparent cognitive deficits can be overcome. Hornsby and Miles (1980) also report the success of similar remediation. The data on attainment improvements do not, of course, specify the mechanisms involved. It is not clear whether the children are learning new strategies or have developed the weak skill areas. Indeed, it is not proven whether it is actually the teaching that is improving attainments or some other factor, for example the pastoral care, or living by the sea! See Gittelman and Feingold (1983) and Thomson (1984) for a review of methodological problems in ‘proving’ teaching efficacy.

In Study 2 the treatment group had higher scores in all types of reading and spelling assessment. This reflected their increasing attainments and competence in written language skills and is not surprising given the data on attainment development. As far as improvement on the reading of regular words was concerned, the treatment group improved their phonological or alphabetid grapheme-phoneme correspondence skills considerably, but in particular made great improvements in their recognition of irregular words. The difference between regular and irregular reading in the treatment group was not significant, whereas in the non-treatment group there was better reading of the regular words. Rack (1985), and also Thomson (1984), suggested that dyslexics, because of their difficulties with phonological skills, tend to compensate by applying an orthographic or visual strategy, and this may have the result of assuming words to be regular. The application of this assumption could result in a higher number of irregular word errors, when children are making guesses and ‘regularizing’ the pronunciation of words from one or two letters. It is also noticeable that the treatment group were beginning to reach mean scores comparable with those of the control group, suggesting that their word analysis skills were beginning to reach the ‘norm’.

As far as lexicality was concerned-that is the application of grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules to non-words-there was again a substantial difference between the treatment and non-treatment groups and between both of these and the controls. Even the treatment group did not reach anywhere near the proficiency of the control group in the application of these rules to word reading. A most striking difference was the non-treatment group having great problems using phonological skills to decode non-words.

In syllable analysis we have similar results, in that treatment groups consistently scored higher than non-treatment groups, indicating that their ability to recognize and apply phonological skills across a greater number of syllables was more proficient. Part of these skills may relate to short-term memory, but the treatment group were developing alternative strategies to work out the spelling of words with multi-syllables. For both non-treatment and treatment groups there was a clear syllable-length effect.

The data on reading regular and irregular words, and non-words (lexicality) offer more detailed interpretation. Frith’s (1985) theory of three spelling stages (logographic, alphabetic and orthographic), predicts that if dyslexics are halted at the beginning of the alphabetic phase they should read real words better than non-

28 M. Thomson

words; however, if they are still at the logographic stage they should read irregular words as well as regular words. Snowling et al. (1986a) found this latter effect in their (poorer attainment) dyslexics. The data here lend some support to the logographic stage interpretation. Both groups of dyslexics certainly did less well on non-word reading, suggesting that they were weaker at the application of non- lexical phonology or grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules. There was a good deal of improvement from 8.7 to 17 in the children following remediation, but these skills were still weak, relative to the level of controls (28) who were chronologically younger.

However, the dyslexics did not meet the prediction in respect of regularhrregular words, both groups showing an advantage (as did controls) in favour of regular words. In particular the non-treatment group had a great advantage in regular word reading. This suggests that the dyslexics are not reading ‘logographically’ but do have some alphabetical skills or, as suggested above, guess from one or two letters. In this case the treatment group of dyslexics perform as well as controls. The alphabetic, or grapheme-phoneme, rules can be learned and applied in respect of real words, but not so easily of non-words, it seems. Perhaps the lexical or semantic component of reading is helping here , whereas non-lexical phonology, without additional coding information, is more difficult to remediate.

The data on spelling regular words with different syllable length illustrated how it is possible to remedy sound-to-spelling correspondence rules, as the treatment group showed a similar profile to the controls (albeit of a younger age). The failure of alphabetic competence is reflected in weak spelling, according to Frith (1985), and the non-treatment dyslexics reflected this by their poorer performance, a result also reported by Snowling et al. (1986a). The weak performance for all groups in increasing syllable length presumably relates to the retention of phonemes in sequence in short-term memory, and in phonological recoding skills. It is noticeable that the non-treatment group had a steeper drop-off, particularly between one and more syllables. Phonemic segmentation seemed to be a particular problem for the dyslexics here.

In Study 3 there was a clear advantage in the simultaneous oral spelling technique. Encouraging a child to be explicitly aware of the phonemes making up spellings, and to use aspects of a kinesthetic code, improved spelling technique, at least in terms of the individual word spellings given. The use of a visually oriented teaching of spelling did not help the children; in fact in some cases it appeared to interfere with their learning as manifested by the slightly lower mean scores. This perhaps suggests that the inefficient visual code that the children are already using is to be actively discouraged. Certainly one’s experiences of just telling dyslexics to learn a list of words, without guidance or strategy, is not a particularly useful way of helping them to spell.

The studies also underline the importance of taking a developmental perspective. Children’s performance will vary and change over time, particularly as they develop more mature cognitive skills, and also as a function of the teaching they receive. At a simple level it is important to choose appropriate control groups. Most control groups are matched on chronological age. For example, the dyslexic group might have a chronological age of 10, with a reading age of 7, whereas the control group’s reading and chronological age would both be 10. This means that there might be a 3-year gap between the reading ages of the groups. One cannot


then be sure that any differences obtained on the dependent variable (i.e. memory test or whatever) are due to being dyslexic rather than due to reading experience. Basically the argument goes that learning to read in itself may give rise to certain kinds of skills, not least of which are the ones associated with linguistic elements. Thus the processes of learning to read between, say, 7 and 10 years reading age may result in certain phonetic coding skills developing. Furthermore, the kind of information that the children are obtaining from reading a text of reading age 7 , which would include very basic simple words and concepts, is different from that of a reading age of 10 which is almost up to everyday competence (some newspapers have a reading age of around 11). See also Bryant and Bradley (1985) for further comments on this issue. In some of the research mentioned above reading age (RA)-matched controls are used. Here dyslexics can be seen to have auditory processing deficits even when compared with younger controls who are reading at the same level that they are. However, it is important not to take the argument of RA-matched controls too far. To argue that one cannot draw any conclusions from studies that do not use RA-matched controls (e.g. Goswami, 1986; Bryant and Bradley, 1985) is overstating the case. RA-matched controls, being chronologically younger, will have many less mature cognitive skills. Furthermore, they are an inappropriate control group as they could be approaching the reading (or experimental) tasks differently from the dyslexics due to age. Any differences between RA controls and dyslexics may be due to general developmental cognitive factors, and not the ‘deficit’. An important question in learning disorders is ‘delay’ versus ‘deviance’, i.e. whether performance is at a normal but earlier developmental stage or does not follow normal development at all. The exclusion of chronological age-matched controls would prevent the examination of this issue. Another important factor might be the different strategies used by the child. In many cases this is a function of the teaching they receive, as shown by the present data. Furthermore, the nature of the task given to the child will vary according to age and experience. In the early stages of reading, for example, there tends to be more emphasis on the visual aspect in ‘look-and-say’ kinds of approaches, whereas when the child gets older there will be more emphasis on ‘phonics’, that is translating the visual symbols into their sound code or a phonological route to reading. Later there will be more emphasis on spelling, which may bring into play phonemic awareness and orthographic knowledge. At a later stage still in a child‘s school career there will be expectations in terms of expressing ideas in writing and essays. ‘Deficits’ discovered by experimental tasks may well reflect this teaching.

Clearly, taking children for research programmes from a cohort of those who have been given the types of teaching outlined previously will not give a true reflection of the nature of their deficits. A very different picture will emerge, depending on the stage (pre- or post-remediation) at which the child is included in a research project. This is a most important caveat for experimental psychologists.

In addition, parallels between developmental and acquired dyslexia should not be taken too far because of the changing pattern of children’s behaviour in reading and spelling tasks (see also Thomson, 1984; Snowling, 1983.) Care should also be taken in generalizing from a particular subgroup of dyslexics (see also Baddeley, Ellis, Miles and Lewis, 1982), as suggesting a more general aetiology.

Although further longitudinal studies are required, the following conclusions are proposed.

30 M . Thomson

1. A remedial regime based on overcoming cognitive deficits in the dyslexic can improve attainments over the period considered.

2. Cognitive deficits in dyslexics such as phonological coding, phonemic awareness and alphabetic skills can be remedied. However, there is some variability in the success of such remediation. Specifically non-lexical phonological spelling is particularly resistant, whereas lexical alphabetic skills can be improved considerably.

3. Encouraging the specific skills of phonemic awareness and alternative (kinesthetic) coding can improve the spelling of words over the period considered.

4. Weaknesses in alphabetic competence, as manifested by spelling of words of different syllable length, are shown, and can be remediated.

5. Predictions based on Frith’s (1985) proposal of logographic stage reading in dyslexics are only partially supported.

6. Care should be taken by researchers to take cognizance of whether dyslexic subjects have received remedial help. In addition, the nature of this help may considerably affect results obtained in tasks given here and (presumably) in similar tasks.

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Documents

Preliminary findings concerning the effects of specialized teaching on dyslexic children