ACQ Vol 13 no 2 2011

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82 ACQ Volume 13, Number 2 2011 ACQuiring Knowledge in Speech, Language and Hearing
All of the strategies aimed to focus attention on one word at
a time. Of the six strategies, a reading window showed the
most success in reducing reading errors. Finger tracking
also led to a reduction in reading errors, although neither
method was successful for all participants.
Summary
We have presented brief descriptions of six different
subtypes of developmental reading disorders (refer to Box 1
for an overview) and have provided suggestions on how to
identify these disorders in a school or clinical setting, with
reference to successful treatment methods. Although pure
cases are rare, familiarity with the subtypes in their pure
form provides a good basis for diagnosing more complex,
mixed cases of developmental dyslexia, as the link between
children’s reading behaviours and deficits, and in particular
reading processes can be identified (see Brunsdon et al.,
2002a; Brunsdon, Hannan, Coltheart, & Nickels, 2002b for
treatment of mixed cases). A specific diagnosis provides a
good basis for developing targeted treatment programs for
children with both pure and complex reading disorders. It is
important to ensure that a detailed assessment precedes
treatment and that treatment effects are monitored closely,
as response to treatment varies between children and
depends on the exact nature of the difficulty (Coltheart &
Kohnen, in press).
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Naama Friedmann for helpful
discussions.
References
Aaron, P. G. (1989). Dyslexia and hyperlexia: Diagnosis and
management of developmental disabilities. Dordrecht, the
Netherlands: Kluwer.
Aram, D. M. (1997). Reading without meaning in
young children. Topics in Language Disorders: Special
perspectives on relations between oral language knowledge
and reading, 17, 1–13.
Atkin, K., & Lorch, M. P. (2006). Hyperlexia in a 4-year-
old boy with autism spectrum disorder. Journal of
Neurolingustics , 19, 253–269.
transposed can also be used (e.g., gule , which the child
may read as glue ) (Friedmann & Rahamim, 2007).
A group study with Hebrew-speaking participants with
developmental letter-position dyslexia, aged between 9 and
29 years, trialled six different strategies to reduce letter-
position errors (Friedmann, Shvimer, Kerbel, Rahamim,
& Gvion, 2010). The strategies included inserting two or
six spaces between letters, inserting a symbol after the
first letter or between migratable letters, presenting the
letters in different colours, and finger tracking. Participants
responded differently to the different strategies; however,
finger tracking was shown to be the most successful
strategy in reducing letter-position errors.
Attentional dyslexia
Children with attentional dyslexia are better at reading single
letters than reading single words, and they are better at
reading single words than reading sentences (Davis &
Coltheart, 2002; Friedmann et al., in press; Hall,
Humphreys, & Cooper, 2001; Humphreys & Mayall, 2001;
Mayall & Humphreys, 2002). There is reason to believe that
when a child with attentional dyslexia is presented with a
sentence, they are unable to narrow their attention to the
individual words, which may result in the omission of letters,
so sport spell is read as sort spell, or letter intrusions such
that fleece feet being read as fleece fleet (see Friedmann et
al., in press, for more details on error types).
It is thought that within dual route theory, a letter-word
binding deficit exists within this subtype, meaning that the
letters migrate between words. This type of reading disorder
would be best assessed by presenting word pairs such as
those shown above, to find evidence of migration errors
occurring between the words (e.g., Friedmann et al., in press).
Friedmann, et al (in press) trialled six different types of
strategies to try to reduce reading errors, with participants
who demonstrated developmental attentional dyslexia,
aged from 10 to 62 years. Treatment strategies included
using a reading window or a word-sized cardboard cutout,
finger tracking while reading, words presented in a table,
words shown in a different format (i.e., adjusted font or font
size) and different sizes of spaces shown between words.
Box 1. Subtypes of developmental reading disorders and suggested assessments
Reading disorder Assessment Performance pattern
Phonological dyslexia, surface Castles & Coltheart Reading Test 2 (Castles et Phonological dyslexia: below average non-word reading;
dyslexia and mixed dyslexia al., 2009) MOTIF – average or above average irregular word reading.
Surface dyslexia: below average irregular word reading;
average or above average nonword reading.
Mixed dyslexia: below average irregular word reading;
below average nonword reading.
Poor comprehenders Neale Assessment of Reading Ability (Neale, 1999) Average or above average accuracy score and below
average comprehension score.
Hyperlexia Neale Assessment of Reading Ability (Neale, 1999) Above average or very advanced accuracy score and
below average comprehension score.
Non-verbal IQ test Below average score – may have additional intellectual
impairments.
Letter-position dyslexia Castles & Coltheart Reading Test 2 (Castles et al., Average irregular word reading; average nonword
2009) MOTIF – reading.
Migratable words Above average number of letter-position errors.
Attentional dyslexia Castles & Coltheart Reading Test 2 (Castles et al., Average irregular word reading; average nonword
2009) MOTIF – reading.
Word pairs Above average migration errors between words.