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Observations on the temporal correlates of reading failure

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Abstract

The definitions of developmental dyslexia andtemporal processing are discussed and severalconstruals of what a temporal processingdeficit might entail are illustrated. Then,using a framework developed by Farmer & Klein(1995), the proposal that a temporal processingdeficit (in vision, audition, or both) might bethe root cause of some proportion of cases ofdevelopmental dyslexia is introduced andvarious research strategies for testing thisproposal are identified. The symposium paperswhich address this general question using arange of these strategies are then criticallyreviewed. It is noted that whereas reading isa recent artifact not yet subject to any directselection pressure, its normal performancerequires the use of, and connections between,the highly evolved modules for visual patternrecognition and language. Within vision andlanguage redundant coding, which permitsperformance in the face of injuries anddegraded input, also makes it difficult todetect subtle deficits (whether temporal, ornot) unless precise tests are used. Yet suchdeficits may degrade performance on tasks (suchas reading) which require the non-copiousconnections between vision and language. Theefficacy of this pathway, I suggest, ismeasured by performance on the rapidautomatized naming (RAN) test.

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  1. Department of Psychology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3H 4J1, Canada

    Raymond M. Klein

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  1. Raymond M. Klein
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Correspondence to Raymond M. Klein.

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Klein, R.M. Observations on the temporal correlates of reading failure. Reading and Writing 15, 207–231 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1013828723016

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