ACQ Vol 13 no 2 2011

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; 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. Average or above average accuracy score and below average comprehension score. Above average or very advanced accuracy score and below average comprehension score. Below average score – may have additional intellectual impairments.

dyslexia and mixed dyslexia

al., 2009) MOTIF – motif.org.au

Poor comprehenders

Neale Assessment of Reading Ability (Neale, 1999)

Hyperlexia

Neale Assessment of Reading Ability (Neale, 1999)

Non-verbal IQ test

Letter-position dyslexia

Castles & Coltheart Reading Test 2 (Castles et al.,

Average irregular word reading; average nonword

2009) MOTIF – motif.org.au

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 – motif.org.au

reading.

Word pairs

Above average migration errors between words.

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ACQ Volume 13, Number 2 2011

ACQ uiring Knowledge in Speech, Language and Hearing