A Strategy for Assessing Problems in Word Recognition among Dyslexics

Abstract

The article argues for the importance of studying word‐recognition strategies in the assessment of dyslexia. The consensus model of word recognition in cognitive neuropsychology, the dual‐route model, is critically discussed in the light of attacks from computational models in modern connectionism. Despite the criticism, it is argued that a dual‐route model can serve important functions in the context of dyslexia assessment. We propose a specific version of the dual‐route model from which we construct a series of tasks for diagnosing subprocesses in word recognition. A computer‐based test battery is described, involving oral reading tasks, lexical decision, rhyme detection, letter categorization, visual analysis, naming, and semantic categorization. Latencies and accuracy scores are recorded. The usefulness of this assessment approach is demonstrated in two case studies of 15‐year‐old dyslexic boys.