Specific phonological and metaphonological deficit in developmental dyslexia

Our main hypothesis is that children with specific reading disabilities encounter mainly phonological and metaphonological difficulties. This hypothesis was assessed in a longitudinal study. 370 children were followed from the beginning of the last year of kindergarten to the end of Grade 4. At the end of this Grade, we selected three groups of backward readers. In one group, children had only a slight reading impairment. Children of the two other groups suffer severe reading impairments with, or without, IQ deficit. These children were matched to a group of same chronological age average reader according to their vocabulary level and non verbal IQ as well as to their reading level before reading instruction. Phonological and musical awareness as well as verbal and non verbal IQ, were assessed from the beginning of the study, (in kindergarten) to the end of second or fourth grades. After 4 years in primary, school, short-term visual and phonological memory, rapid naming, and rapid pseudoword repetition, were also assessed. Our results primilarly showed that dyslexics were mainly characterized by metaphonological and phonological deficits but not by a deficit in visual memory or in auditive (non verbal) analysis. Different result were obtained for children with a non specific reading deficit.