Cognitive profiles of difficult-to-remediate and readily remediated poor readers: Early intervention as a vehicle for distinguishing between cognitive and experiential deficits as basic causes of specific reading disability.

Abstract

Reading impaired first graders were given daily tutoring as a "first cut" diagnostic to aid in distinguishing between reading difficulties caused by basic cognitive deficits and those caused by experiential deficits. Reading achievement in most of these children was found to be within or above the average range after one semester of remediation. Children who were difficult to remediate performed below both children who were readily remediated and normal readers on kindergarten and first-grade tests evaluating phonological skills, but not on tests evaluating visual, semantic and syntactic skills. The results are consistent with convergent findings from previous research suggesting that reading problems in some poor readers may be caused primarily by phonological deficits. Specific reading disability is conventionally defined as severe difficulty in learning to identify printed letters and words in children who have at least average intelligence and who are not impaired by general learning difficulties

Specific reading disability (dyslexia): what have we learned in the past four decades?

“…Most theories of dyslexia are of the former variety and can be classified as qualitative difference, Ôall or none typeÕ theories (you either have or do not have dyslexia) because they are based on the assumption that reading difficulties are ultimately caused by structural or functional anomalies in the brain. However, some scholars have given serious consideration to quantitative difference, continuous abilities type theories of dyslexia (e.g., Olson & Gayan, 2001;Pennington & Lefly, 2001;Shaywitz et al, 1992;Snowling, Gallagher, & Frith, 2003;Stanovich, 1988;Vellutino et al, 1996). Such theories suggest that reading ability is a multifactorial trait that is determined by the action of a particular assortment of genes (called quantitative trait loci) that are important for acquiring reading skills and subskills, interacting with environmental factors to produce quantitative variation in cognitive abilities underlying reading ability and reading achievement.…”

“…First, we know from studies evaluating the relationship between printed word identification and written and oral language comprehension processes that reading comprehension is impaired in an individual who has inadequate facility in word identification, in terms of both accuracy and fluency, even if that individual has adequate language comprehension skills (Gough & Tunmer, 1986;Perfetti, 1985;Snowling, 2000a;Stanovich, 1991;Vellutino, 1979Vellutino, , 1987Vellutino, Scanlon, & Tanzman, 1994;Vellutino, Scanlon, & Chen, 1995a;Vellutino et al, 1996). These same studies demonstrate the converse, that is, that children who have inadequate facility in reading comprehension are typically found to have inadequate facility in word identification and related word-level skills such as spelling and phonological decoding.…”

“…Additional support for this possibility comes from a large number of studies providing independent and convergent evidence that children who have difficulty in mapping alphabetic symbols to sound also have difficulty learning to read and spell (e.g., Fletcher et al, 1994;Olson, Forsberg, Wise, & Rack, 1994;Share & Stanovich, 1995;Shankweiler et al, 1979;Siegel & Ryan, 1984;Snowling, 1980;Stanovich & Siegel, 1994;Tunmer, 1989;Vellutino, 1979Vellutino, , 1987Vellutino, , 1991Vellutino & Scanlon, 1987a, b;Vellutino et al, l995a;Vellutino et al, 1991Vellutino et al, , 1994Vellutino et al, , 1996Wagner & Torgesen, 1987). Moreover, such difficulties have been found to continue well into adulthood (Bruck, 1990(Bruck, , 1992(Bruck, , 1993Satz, Buka, Lipsett, & Seidman, 1998;Spreen, 1989).…”

“…Bruck, 1992;Liberman, Shankweiler, Fischer, & Carter, 1974;Snowling, 2000a;Wagner & Torgesen, 1987). More direct evidence for the possibility that deficiencies in phonological awareness and alphabetic mapping may be causally related to reading difficulties comes from naturalistic studies, controlled laboratory studies, and intervention studies in which it was found that training that helped children acquire these skills had a beneficial effect on word identification, spelling, and reading ability in general (Adams, 1990;Blachman, 1994Blachman, , 2000Bradley & Bryant, 1983;Foorman, Francis, Novy, & Liberman, 1991;Foorman, Francis, Fletcher, Schatschneider, & Mehta, 1998;Hatcher, Hulme & Ellis, 1994;Lundberg, Frost, & Petersen, 1988;Olson, Wise, & Ring, 1999;Scanlon, Vellutino, Small, & Fanuele, 2000;Torgesen, Rose, Lindamood, Conway, & Garvan, 1999;Vellutino & Scanlon, 1987a;Vellutino et al, 1996;Williams, 1980). Thus, although there is abundant evidence that difficulty in learning to identify printed words is the manifest cause of reading difficulties in beginning readers, there is also abundant evidence that this problem, itself, is causally related to significant difficulties acquiring phonological analysis skills and mastering the alphabetic code, regardless of more distinct causes (intrinsic vs. environmental and instructional).…”

“…Although there is considerable evidence that limited knowledge of print concepts and conventions and limited pragmatic knowledge have often been observed in children who also experience early reading difficulties and can certainly contribute to early reading and language difficulties (e.g., Adams, 1990;Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998), limitations in such knowledge are probably not basic causes of specific reading disability, in the biological sense, and are, in most cases, caused by experiential and instructional deficits rather than by biologically based cognitive deficits. Support for this inference comes from studies finding that many children have extreme difficulty learning to read, despite having entered school with age-appropriate pragmatic skills and a reasonably firm grasp of print concepts and conventions, having come, in most such cases, from enriched home backgrounds (e.g., Vellutino et al, 1996).…”