Perceptual and Linguistic Processing of Letters and Words by Normal and Disabled Readers a

Abstract

Response latencies were obtained in word matching and sentence completion tasks from disabled readers, age-matched normal readers, and reading-level matched normal readers. The disabled group was significantly slower than the old normal group on both tasks (p < .001) and did not differ from the young normal group. None of the groups required more time for sentence completion than physical matching, indicating that semantic processing of these sentences was highly automatized. The disabled and younger groups were slower on physically confusable words than dissimilar words; whereas, the older were the same on both types of words, indicating that perceptual and decoding processes are learned by normal readers but are a primary source of deficiency in disabled readers.

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