People with dyslexia have difficulty learning to read and many lack fluent word recognition as adults. In a novel task that borrows elements of the ‘word superiority’ and ‘word inversion’ paradigms, we investigate whether holistic word recognition is impaired in dyslexia. In Experiment 1 students with dyslexia and controls judged the similarity of pairs of 6- and 7-letter words or pairs of words whose letters had been partially jumbled. The stimuli were presented in both upright and inverted form with orthographic regularity and orientation randomized from trial to trial. While both groups showed sensitivity to orthographic regularity, both word inversion and letter jumbling were more detrimental to skilled than dyslexic readers supporting the idea that the latter may read in a more analytic fashion. Experiment 2 employed the same task but using shorter, 4- and 5-letter words and a design where orthographic regularity and stimuli orientation was held constant within experimental blocks to encourage the use of either holistic or analytic processing. While there was no difference in reaction time between the dyslexic and control groups for inverted stimuli, the students with dyslexia were significantly slower than controls for upright stimuli. These findings suggest that holistic word recognition, which is largely based on the detection of orthographic regularity, is impaired in dyslexia.

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Deprivation indicates lack of opportunities to have experiences that are available to the majority of children. It can adversely affect the social functioning of students among boys and girls. It was hypothesized that deprivation in various areas can predict variances in social behaviours of boys and girls differently. Social Behaviour Questionnaire of S.K. Pal, K.S. Misra and M. Gupta and Deprivaion Scale of S.K. Pal, K. Pandey and K.S. Misra were used to collect data. Correlation, t-ratio and regression analysis were used to analyze the data. Results revealed that girls exhibit more concern for others but less social passivity; deprivation in all the eight areas, viz. physiological, fulfillment of needs, ecological, social, emotional, economic, educational and parental areas is positively related to social passivity among boys; tolerance is not related to any area of deprivation as perceived by boys as well as girls; dependence, power assertion, ingratiation and social conversation among boys and girls are positively related to physiological, ecological, emotional and economic deprivations; all the eight areas of deprivation contribute to more than ten per cent variance in boys' compliance, dependence, ingratiation, social conversation, social passivity, aggression and withdrawal, and girl's power assertion, ingratiation, social passivity, aggression and withdrawal; concern for others and tolerance among boys are the two least affected social behaviours among boys while in the case of girls concern for others, compliance and social conversation are the three least affected social behaviours.

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