dyslexia

• what is it like to have dyslexia?

  people struggle to learn how to recognise and decode printed words so they cannot read as accurately/fluently as others.

  • have poor verbal STM which has been shown using phonological similarity effect and word length effect.
• McDougall 1994


  divided 90 children to three reading abilities.

  • poor readers had lower memory spans and a slower reading rate, good readers can articulate words quickly leading to greater number of words being processed in STM.
  • poo readers sound out words slower so fewer words are held in STM
  • basic inefficiency in phonological processing and storage could explain dyslexia
• Alloway (2009)


  children with dyslexia have difficulty processing and remembering speech sounds due to poor working memory.

  • cannot hold speech sounds for long enough to be able to bind them to form a word.
  • investigated 46 children 6-11 year olds with a reading disability, finding that STM deficits could be cause of reading problems
• what impact does the research into dyslexia do?

  suggests there's an underlying cognitive impairment that leads to shorter memory span and difficulty processing/storing verbal info in STM.

  • not entirely sure on what role verbal memory plays in causing dyslexia2