The use of Orthographic and Phonological Strategies for the decoding of words in children with Developmental Dyslexia and Average Readers

Children with developmental dyslexia are known to have problems with phonological awareness and, in particular, with phonological decoding. This study was aimed at determining the relationship between orthographic and phonological decoding strategies used by a group of children with developmental dyslexia and two groups of children who were average readers (matched on reading age and chronological age, respectively). The three groups of children, 12 in each, were presented with single words, either visually or orally. The children were asked to pronounce these words using either an orthographic (spelling) strategy following mental deletion of one letter, or a phonological (sounding) strategy following mental deletion of one sound. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that the reading age control group were more accurate when using phonological strategies than when using orthographic strategies, whereas the chronological age control group generally showed superior orthographic and phonological processing abilities compared with both the developmental dyslexia and reading age control groups. Compared with both chronological and reading age control groups, children in the developmental dyslexia group had more difficulty when using a phonological strategy, particularly when words were presented auditorily. However, compared with their performance on phonological tasks, the developmental dyslexia group performed at a level commensurate with their age when carrying out the orthographic tasks. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.