Surface Dyslexia and Developmental Disorders of Reading

Abstract

A comparison is made of characteristics of the reading of five adult neurological patients suffering from the reading disorder known as surface dyslexia, and four children suffering from reading disorder in the absence of any observable signs of neurological damage. The four main symptoms of surface dyslexia are: 1) greater difficulty in reading aloud irregularly-spelled words (such as gauge, debt) than regularly-spelled words (such as grill, turn), 2) errors in reading aloud characterized by regulations and visual errors, 3) spelling errors are usually phonologically correct, 4) confusion between homophones in defining printed words. These symptoms were all found in the reading and spelling of the four children with reading disorder.