Twenty-five studies which reported WISC subtest scores of disabled readers were reviewed. The subtests were reclassified into categories labeled Spatial, Conceptual, and Sequential, and disabled readers were ranked as to their relative strength in these three categories. Disabled readers were highest in the Spatial category, intermediate in the Conceptual category, and lowest in the Sequential category. The high rank in the Spatial category suggests that disabled readers are strong in visual-spatial skills. The low rank in the Sequential category can be accounted for by deficits in short-term memory processes and attentional processes.
WISC subtest scores from two populations of disabled readers were factor analyzed. Subtests included in Bannatyne's Spatial and Conceptual categories were each found to comprise separate factors. Subtests in Bannatyne's Sequential category, particularly Digit Span and Coding, comprised a separate factor in only one of the two populations. This suggests that the lowered scores of disabled readers on Digit Span and Coding cannot be accounted for in terms of a single underlying short-term memory ability.
Four experiments were conducted to test various aspects of an optimal level of arousal model of hyperactivity in learning-disabled children. Vigilance performance and level of body movement were measured while learning-disabled and control children performed in an auditory vigilance task. The results suggested that body movement increased throughout the vigilance task, increased rates of external stimulation result in decreased level of body movement, and learning-disabled children differed from controls in showing higher levels of body movement and poorer vigilance performance. The results were discussed in terms of changes in arousal level and compensatory stimulus-seeking behavior.
This study attempts to define more clearly the subgroups of learning disabled children. The vigilance performance, skin conductance level and behavioral ratings of children categorized according to family history of reading problems were evaluated. Behavioral ratings and skin conductance levels show significant differences. The results suggest that distinct subgroups of disabled readers exist, and .research based on heterogeneous samples may be misleading.Numerpus researchers have posited several distinct .types of disabled readers. Bannatyne (1 971 ), for example, discusses two important subgroups: those whose reading disability is secondary to a more generalized minimal brain dysfunction (MBD) and those whose reading disability is genetically based with no MBD characteristics. Children with MBD are characterized by hyperactivity, inattention, distractibility, impulsivity, and perceptual motor problems. A reading disorder is only one of many characteristics included in a loosely def i n e d syndrome. Children in Bannatyne's second subgroup are characterized by deficits in auditory sequential memory, auditory discrimination skills, and strengths in visuospatial skills. Both their strengths and weaknesses have presumably been acquired from parents who have similar strengths and weaknesses in addition to histories of reading difficulties. Of particular importance in the present context is that these children are said to lack the behaviors characteristic of the child with MBD. Research into subgroups similar t o Bannatyne's is reported by Denckla (1972).In spite of these and other attempts to distinguish between distinct subgroups of disabled readers, research investigating such processes as attention, memory and physiological arousal is often conducted with heterogeneous samples of reading disabled children. No attempt is made to restrict the sample to one type of disabled reader nor t o look a t subgroups within the larger sample. As a result such studies are difficult to interpret since one does not know if the results are characteristic of all disabled readers o r just one or more of the subgroups.The purpose of this study is t o explore the heterogeneity of a sample of children with reading disorders by dividing that sample into children with and without family histories of read-
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