Word Recognition in English and German Dyslexics: A Direct Comparison

Abstract

According to current cognitive theories, classic dyslexia is caused by a deficit in phonological processing. Different orthographies represent different ways of realizing the phonological properties of a language. German orthography represents the relationships between phonemes and graphemes in a much more consistent and transparent fashion than English orthography with its many exceptional and irregular spellings. The present study compared the word and nonword reading abilities of 12 year old English and German speaking dyslexic children. A word and a nonword reading task was developed which allowed a direct comparison of the two language groups. One, two and three syllable words which are similar in English and German and corresponding nonwords were presented While the consistency of German orthography allows dyslexic children to acquire considerable though not sufficient knowledge about the relationships between spoken and written words, the complexity of English orthography poses an additional problem for dyslexic children. German dyslexics read slowly but accurately, while English dyslexics showed low reading accuracy and low reading speed Ward frequency, item length and lexicality had a stronger influence on English dyslexics' performance than on performance of the German children.