This article examines the characteristics of surface dyslexia in a language (Italian) with high
grapheme–phoneme correspondence. The reading performances of four boys are reported.
The most pervasive reading symptom was severe slowness, which was associated in some, but
not all, cases with reduced text comprehension. All four dyslexics performed at chance level on a
task requiring comprehension of homophonous words (Study I). Vocal reaction times to single
words were delayed with respect to the controls and showed a clear word length effect (Study II).
However, vocal reaction times to pictorial stimuli were normal (Study III). Eye movement
recordings taken during reading indicated an increased number and a reduced amplitude of
rightward saccades and longer fixation durations (Study IV). A test of letter recognition in central
and peripheral vision indicated that the reading deficit could not be explained in terms of an
abnormal attentional “window,” as found in other cases of dyslexia (Study V). An
analysis of the boys' cognitive skills (Study VI) indicated spared phonological awareness
in three of four subjects; a severe deficit in rapid scanning of nonlinguistic stimuli was present in
all of the subjects. Overall, these results indicate that parallel visual processing of words was
impaired, and that the boys analyzed words sequentially, presumably through an
orthographic–phonological conversion. This condition may be interpreted as surface
dyslexia, even though the prominent characteristics of this syndrome are somewhat different in
Italian than in other languages. In languages with “loose” relationships between
graphemes and phonemes (e.g., English), when the phonological analysis of words is insufficient,
a variety of errors is produced. In languages with considerably more regular
grapheme–phoneme correspondence (e.g., Italian), the number of errors may be small
since phonological reading is generally correct, and the most conspicuous symptom is slowness
in reading.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.