R.M. Joshi - Böcker

Even though Specific Reading Disability (Dyslexia) has been clinically recognized as a developmental learning disorder for nearly a hundred years. only within the past two decades it has become the subject of major experimental investigation. Because. by definition. dyslexic children are of average or superior intelligence. it is often suspected that some arcane feature of the written language is responsible for the inordinate difficulty experienced by these children in learning to read. The occasional claim that developmental dyslexia is virtually nonexistent in some languages coupled with the fact that languages differ in their writing systems has further rendered orthography a subject of serious investigation. The present Volume represents a collection of preliminary reports of investigations that explored the relationship between orthography and reading disabilities in different languages. Even though not explicitly stated. these reports are concerned with the question whether or not some orthographies are easier to learn to read and write than others. One dimension on which orthographies differ from each other is the kind of relationship they bear to pronunciation. The orthographies examined in this book range from the ones that have a simple one-to­ one grapheme-phoneme relationship to those which have a more complex relationship.

Although anecdotal reports of loss of once-acquired reading ability was noticed in the individuals who had sustained brain damage as early as the year AD. 30, systematic enquires of alexia were not undertaken until the latter part of the nineteenth century. The two anatomo-pathological studies carried out by Dejerine in 1891 and 1892 mark the beginning of scholarly investigation of reading failure. Interestingly, the study of de­ velopmental reading disability also began to receive attention at about the same time when Pringle Morgan described the case of a 14-year-old boy who had great difficulty in reading and writing. Since then sporadic reports of developmental reading-writing failure began to appear in medi­ cal and educational journals even though such investigation went on at an unhurried pace. In the past two decades, however, the situation has changed enormously and hundreds of articles that have investigated developmental and acquired cognitive disabilities have been published. Disorders of spoken language and written language are two areas that have been extensively addressed by these articles. Those who study disorders of language come from a wide variety of backgrounds and their reports are also published in a variety of journals. The purpose of the present volume is to bring some important research findings of written language disorders together and present them in a coherent format. In Chapter 1, Joshi and Aaron challenge the validity of the notion of the putative "poor speller but good reader'.

It was during a pleasant and warm (both literally and figuratively) two- week period in October, 1991 that a number of researchers, scholars and c1inicians from diverse lands gathered at the beautiful Chateau de Bonas, near Toulouse, France to discuss psychological, neuropsychological and neurolinguistic aspects of reading and writing disorders. The occasion for the serious disputations of theories, research findings and c1inical appli- cations was the Advanced Study Institute (ASI) under the auspices of the Scientific Affairs Division of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). There was much sharing of mutual experiences, and considerable debate on some issues. There were also friendly exchanges, 'international' ping-pong, tennis matches, and bicyc1e races, and even some convivial- ity akin to that of a c1ass reunion with members telling their stories of yesterday and visions of tomorrow. All these serious scientific disputations and the friendly exchanges would not have been possible without the major assistance from NATO and other institutions and individuals. We wish to express our deep appre- ciation to Dr. L. v. da Cunha ofNATO Scientific Affairs Division, Dr.Tilo Kester and Mrs. Barbara Kester of the International Transfer of Science and Technology (ITST) for their active support and substantial assistance throughout the Advanced Study Institute; Mr. Charles Stockman and his staff of the Chateau de Bonas for looking after our stay there; Christi Martin and Xi-Wu Feng of Oklahoma State University, and the University of Saskatchewan generally for facilitating our work.

This volume contains 20 chapters, grouped by languages (English, German, Dutch, Nordic and Chinese), on phonologic and orthographic processing in learning to read and spell in a cross-language perspective. The integrating theme is the importance of metalinguistic awareness and also orthographic factors in learning to read and spell in alphabetic language systems. Phonological processing reinforces orthographic processing and is in turn bolstered by the latter in emergent literacy. The interplay of these factors is stressed in the various chapters. Areas such as phonological processing subserving metalinguistic awareness are viewed as being worth further investigation. Audience: Researchers, clinicians and postgraduate students interested in the psychology of reading and spelling within the broad cross-language framework.

It was during a pleasant and warm (both literally and figuratively) two- week period in October, 1991 that a number of researchers, scholars and c1inicians from diverse lands gathered at the beautiful Chateau de Bonas, near Toulouse, France to discuss psychological, neuropsychological and neurolinguistic aspects of reading and writing disorders. The occasion for the serious disputations of theories, research findings and c1inical appli- cations was the Advanced Study Institute (ASI) under the auspices of the Scientific Affairs Division of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). There was much sharing of mutual experiences, and considerable debate on some issues. There were also friendly exchanges, 'international' ping-pong, tennis matches, and bicyc1e races, and even some convivial- ity akin to that of a c1ass reunion with members telling their stories of yesterday and visions of tomorrow. All these serious scientific disputations and the friendly exchanges would not have been possible without the major assistance from NATO and other institutions and individuals. We wish to express our deep appre- ciation to Dr. L. v. da Cunha ofNATO Scientific Affairs Division, Dr.Tilo Kester and Mrs. Barbara Kester of the International Transfer of Science and Technology (ITST) for their active support and substantial assistance throughout the Advanced Study Institute; Mr. Charles Stockman and his staff of the Chateau de Bonas for looking after our stay there; Christi Martin and Xi-Wu Feng of Oklahoma State University, and the University of Saskatchewan generally for facilitating our work.

This volume contains 20 chapters, grouped by languages (English, German, Dutch, Nordic and Chinese), on phonologic and orthographic processing in learning to read and spell in a cross-language perspective. The integrating theme is the importance of metalinguistic awareness and also orthographic factors in learning to read and spell in alphabetic language systems. Phonological processing reinforces orthographic processing and is in turn bolstered by the latter in emergent literacy. The interplay of these factors is stressed in the various chapters. Areas such as phonological processing subserving metalinguistic awareness are viewed as being worth further investigation. Audience: Researchers, clinicians and postgraduate students interested in the psychology of reading and spelling within the broad cross-language framework.

The present volume is based on the proceedings of the Advanced Study Institute (ASI) sponsored by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Institute was conducted at the beautiful Chateau de Bonas, near Toulouse, France in October, 1991. A number of scholars from different countries participated in the two-week institute on differential diagnosis and treatments of reading and writing problems. The accepted papers for this volume are divided into three sections: (a) Differential diagnosis of reading disabilities; (b) Access to language-related component processes; and (c) Reading/spelling strategies. The other papers appear in a companion volume: Developmental and Acquired Dyslexia: Neuropsychological and Neurolinguistic Perspectives, also coedited by Joshi and Leong and published by Kluwer Academic Publishers. Several people and organizations have helped us in this endeavor and their assistance is gratefully acknowledged. Our special thanks are due to: the Scientific Affairs Division of NATO for providing the major portion of the financial support; Dr. L. V. da Cunha of NATO and Dr. THo Kester and Mrs. Barbara Kester of the International Transfer of Science and Technology (ITST) for their help and support of the various aspects of the institute; Mr. Charles Stockman and the entire staff of the Chateau de Bonas for making our stay a pleasant one by helping us to run the Institute smoothly. We also wish to thank our reviewers and the following people for other assistance: Christi Martin, and Xi-wu Fang.

Although anecdotal reports of loss of once-acquired reading ability was noticed in the individuals who had sustained brain damage as early as the year AD. 30, systematic enquires of alexia were not undertaken until the latter part of the nineteenth century. The two anatomo-pathological studies carried out by Dejerine in 1891 and 1892 mark the beginning of scholarly investigation of reading failure. Interestingly, the study of de­ velopmental reading disability also began to receive attention at about the same time when Pringle Morgan described the case of a 14-year-old boy who had great difficulty in reading and writing. Since then sporadic reports of developmental reading-writing failure began to appear in medi­ cal and educational journals even though such investigation went on at an unhurried pace. In the past two decades, however, the situation has changed enormously and hundreds of articles that have investigated developmental and acquired cognitive disabilities have been published. Disorders of spoken language and written language are two areas that have been extensively addressed by these articles. Those who study disorders of language come from a wide variety of backgrounds and their reports are also published in a variety of journals. The purpose of the present volume is to bring some important research findings of written language disorders together and present them in a coherent format. In Chapter 1, Joshi and Aaron challenge the validity of the notion of the putative "poor speller but good reader'.