ACQ Vol 11 no 2 2009

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ACQ Volume 11, Number 2 2009 127
primary-school aged children. Drawing information from
current research, the authors provide three hypotheses to
explain the relationship between academic difficulties and
behaviour problems. The first is that attention problems may
cause problem behaviours as well as have a negative impact
on learning. The second hypothesis is that problems
behaviours often reduce access to educational instruction
and disrupt learning. The third hypothesis concerns
behavioural function and purports that a student’s low
academic skills may lead to problem behaviour for the
purpose of escaping academic tasks. The study examined
the third hypothesis with research questions focusing on the
function of problem behaviours.
Fifty-one students in grades 4–6 participated in the
study. All of the students had had two or more office
discipline referrals (e.g., for showing disrespect, harassment,
vandalism, lying, or fighting) during the school year. A
functional behavior assessment (FBA) was conducted
using the FBA Interview-Teacher (FIT) tool. A curriculum-
based measure of reading was used to assess reading
competency. The results revealed distinct groups of
students. Those with problem behaviour with the function
of maintaining peer attention had above average reading
fluency scores and those students with problem behaviour
with the function of escaping academic tasks had mean
fluency scores well below the average range. The study
had limitations in that the sample size was small and the
results may not extend to populations that are significantly
different from the study participants. The results of the study,
however, have important clinical implications and support
the evaluation of reading fluency and the use of the FBA as
an effective and recommended assessment for use with
students with chronic behaviour problems. It also highlights
that intervention for problem behaviours needs to have
different components based on the identified function of the
problem behaviour.
The neurobiology of reading and dyslexia.
Shaywitz, S.E., & Shaywitz, B.A. (2008). Paying attention to
reading: The neurobiology of reading and dyslexia.
Development and Psychopathology, 20(4), 1329–1349.
Andrea Murray
As reflected in the title, this article examines current theories
and practices relating to reading and reading difficulties. It
outlines the processes that take place during reading,
explores the mechanisms necessary for the acquisition of
reading skills, and examines the different definitions and
theories of dyslexia. The paper also discusses the
neurobiology of reading and dyslexia and explores the
neurobiological commonalities that exist between attention
difficulties and reading difficulties.
The use of functional magnetic resonance imaging
(fMRI) has provided consistent and replicable data on
the location of the neural systems for reading. It has also
enabled comparisons to be made between the neural
systems of dyslexic readers and unimpaired readers with
converging evidence now supporting what has been termed
a “neural signature” for dyslexia. These findings have been
consistent across cultures and demonstrate a disruption
of the posterior neural systems serving reading. It has
been widely established that in dyslexic readers there are
disrupted posterior reading systems in the pariotemporal
and occipitotemporal areas but that compensatory systems
focused on the link between RAN and reading, with the
RAN-spelling relationship receiving much less attention and
being confounded by the use of non-word reading skills as
an additional research variable (as opposed to non-word
spelling).
The authors believe that RAN reflects a capacity to
accurately store a word’s orthographic information. In
English, there is a higher percentage of inconsistency when
writing down different forms of the same sound (i.e., the
vowel sound in: new vs. shoe) than when pronouncing
different forms of the same spelling (leaf vs. deaf), leaving
many to conclude that spelling is in fact a more difficult task
than reading.
The experiment involved the use of regression analysis to
investigate the extent in which different factors contribute to
reading and spelling skills. Factors included: age, non-verbal
abilities, phonological processing (non-word reading and
spelling tasks), and the four RAN tasks (digit naming, letter
naming, colour naming and object naming). The design of
the experiment is unique in that it looks at the effect of the
RAN tasks over and above phonological processing skills.
A sample of 65 children (7–13 years) with reading and
spelling difficulties were tested for this study. The research
set out to answer the following questions: 1) is RAN a
predictor of spelling abilities (when controlling for all other
factors listed above), 2) is this relationship specific to
alphanumeric RAN tasks (digit and letter naming), and 3) is
RAN also a predictor of reading ability?
Results showed strong correlations between performance
on non-word reading and spelling tasks and performance
on real word reading and spelling tasks. It was also found
that spelling and reading ability was strongly correlated with
alphanumeric RAN tasks, but not those involving the naming
of objects or colours.
Phonological processing skills (non-word reading and
spelling) predicted a large amount of variance in both reading
and spelling scores. After this was taken into account,
the alphanumeric RAN tasks (digit and letter naming) still
accounted for significant proportions of the variance in
spelling scores, and the letter naming task was a modest
predictor of reading ability.
Non-word reading and spelling tasks can be used to test
one’s ability to read and spell “exception” words. RAN can
measure a child’s capacity to learn “exception” words by
matching word-specific phonological labels to orthographic
forms, rather than using general rules. The implications of
this research include the need to consider rapid automatic
naming as an assessment tool in your literacy test battery,
and more importantly, to consider digit and letter naming
as likely predictors of reading and spelling skills. In addition,
investigating a child’s explicit decoding abilities through non-
word tasks is also essential, given the strong association
between phonological processing and literacy shown in this
study.
Exploring the links between problem behaviour and
reading difficulties.
McIntosh, K., Horner, R.H., Chard, D.J.,
Dickey, C.R., & Braun, D.H. (2008). Reading skills and
function of problem behavior in typical school settings.
Journal of Special Education, 42(3), 131–147.
Andrea Murray
The study described in this article aimed to explore the links
between problem behaviour and reading difficulties in