Phonological Precedence in Dyslexia: A Case Study

Developmental dyslexia is believed to involve a phonological deficit of which the exact properties have not been clearly established. This article presents the findings of a longitudinal case study that suggest that, at least for some people with dyslexia, the fundamental problem involves a disturbance of temporal-spatial ordering abilities. A very frequent reading error of the case is to misread CVC syllables in word internal position as CV syllables instead. Specifically, there is a phonological conspiracy in her reading such that she avoids (word internal) codas and maps them as something else via epenthesis, deletions, metathesis, etc. It is noted that this overproduction of CV units evinces a problem with the temporal-spatial ordering of salient items (vowels) versus nonsalient items (consonants). This can be interpreted from a Minimalist perspective as the reflex of difficulties in linearizing phonological material at the sensorimotor (SM) interface. The analysis is couched in terms of the coupling hypothesis of syllable structure and Optimality Theory.