Phonological Deficit Analysis

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Researchers primarily focused on whether children with dyslexia are more affected than children with average reading ability by talker and intonation variability while perceiving speech in noise. In other words, this language disorder is once again assessed for not only deficits in speech, but in processing as well. Although most researchers on the subject indicate that developmental dyslexia is characterized by reading and spelling deficits, there is also a clear issue in the development of speech sounds. Contrary to the Familial Risk for Dyslexia article, the researchers’ identify two differing views with regards to phonological representation in children with dyslexia. For example, the phonological deficit hypothesis view proposes …show more content…
This is supported more by dyslexic children who already struggle with phoneme discrimination, rather than students who are average readers. An alternative viewpoint, the phonological access deficit hypothesis states that dyslexic children have intact phonological representations but a deficit in assessing or manipulating these representations. In other words, difficulties in phonological representations become apparent when the tasks that are used to assess these representations place heavy demands on the abilities short- term memory or cognitive capacity. While it was not their intention, the researchers considered both the phonological deficit hypothesis and the phonological access deficit hypothesis in their experiment. Thirty- four children with dyslexia and 25 children (between the ages of 2 and 8) with average reading ability, (AR), were tested on their production and perception of consonants in naturally produced consonant- vowel (CV) words and multi-talker babble (talker variability). CVs were then read by the child. In the second task, the child identified the C in the CVs of children in the other group. The dyslexic group made slightly more identification errors than AR children but only for CVs where there was variability in