A research report submitted to the faculty of education of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Education in Educational Psychology. Johannesburg 1991 / This study of the performance of a sample of average readers on a bax t any of psycholinguistic tests, was conducted in order to provide norms fat' these tests. The sample was drawn from two private schools in Johannesburg and was selected on the basis of age~appropriate performance on the Schonell Graded Word Reading Test. Scores on the Psycholinguistic Tests were expected to conform to predictions of an Information Processing Model which identifies two reading strategies: a direct strategy for reading, which depends on the recognition of the visual appearance of the whole word; and a second indirect or phonological strategy, which is dependent on the use of grapheme-phoneme correspondence. This functional model of adult language processing has been applied in the present study to the development of reading abi Ii ties in children. Research has shown that children use dual routes in reading as well, and that I while younger readers are more dependent on the indirect or phonological route, more proficient older readers rely predominantly on the lexical or direct route. It was expected therefore that different reading strategies would be used for different word types at different ages. As the means for the tests supplied by this study conform to p~edictions of the Dual Processing Model and support the pr oposition of developmental changes in reading strategies, these means may be used as an indication of normal processing strategies in children, thereby permitting the identification of deviant reading strategies in children of different ages. / MT2017

The purpose of this study was to follow the development of children with reading disabilities only, reading disabilites and ADHD, ADHD only, and a comparison group from the ages of 3 to 18. Differences were examined on the following variables: (a) Antecedent variables- Reynell Developmental Language Scales, Temperament, and Family Adversity; (b) School-age variables- behavioral and academic self-concept ratings; and (c) Psychological adjustment variables at age 18- self-reports of delinquency. Children from the reading disabled groups exhibited receptive language deficits, were from families who during the early childhood years had less resources to cope with problem situations, exhibited difficult temperamental characteristics, and had negative academic self-concepts. Distinctions were also noted between a "pervasive" and "situational" presentation of behavioral problems. During late adolescence the reading disabled groups exhibited similar levels of delinquency as their non-disabled peers. The implications of this study and directions for future research are discussed.

Many different versions of the original Token Test (De Renzi and Vignolo, 1962) have been available to speech language pathologists as a language assessment tool with various populations. The most recently adapted version of the Token Test is the Token Test for Children developed by DiSimoni (1978) as a measure to detect subtle receptive language abilities in children. The purpose of this study was to determine ii a significant difference existed between reading disabled and normal readers on syntactic and memory abilities on the Token Test for Children and if a difference existed between reading disabled students in grades 3 - 6 and dyslexic adolescents in grades 7 - 12 from the Whitehouse (1983) study.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 192-211).

The general aim of this thesis was to examine variations in the word decoding skills of reading disabled children. These variations were related to possible cognitive, developmental, and environmental causes of reading disability. Possible implications for educational interventions were also analysed. The thesis critically examines the inclusion of the concept of intelligence in the definition of developmental dyslexia. It is suggested that variations in word decoding skills should offer a more solid basis for a study of varieties of reading disability. The empirical studies showed that a) in young children there was a shift from phonological to orthographic word decoding; b) phonological type children (weak in phonological decoding) were characterised by specific phonological deficits; c) surface type children (weak in orthographic decoding) showed more global cognitive deficits suggesting a general developmental delay; d) surface type children showed impaired visual implicit memory for words, which might be associated with limited print exposure; e) an improvement in phonological awareness only transferred to an improved text reading ability for some reading disabled children; f) children who did not benefit from a phonological intervention seemed to rely on orthographic word decoding in text reading. Thus, the thesis suggests that variations in phonological and orthographic word decoding skills offer a useful basis for the study of varieties of reading disability and that educational interventions should pay regard to what the child is already attempting to do when reading. / On the day of the defence date the status of article IV was: Manuscript.

The Rapid Automatized Naming test (RAN) has been shown to be a strong predictor of reading ability (Katzir et al., 2006), however the nature of this relationship remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the underlying components of RAN, and to then determine whether these components partially account for the relationship between RAN and reading ability. The sample consisted of 100 undergraduate students. The underlying components of RAN that were evaluated included, visual search and scanning, auditory and visual sequencing, discrete naming, confrontation naming, executive functioning and phonological processing. The findings suggest that visual search and scanning, auditory sequential processing, discrete naming and executive functioning are all significant underlying components of RAN. Additionally, the findings suggest that visual scanning and auditory sequential processing partially mediate the relationship between RAN and reading fluency.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 106-121). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis--Catholic University of America. / On spine: Girls with a specific learning disability. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-103).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2003. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 249-258). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.