Word-finding ability and design fluency in developmental dyslexia.

Abstract

Certain oral as well as visual language disorders now appear characteristic of the developmental dyslexia syndrome. Recent research has revealed word-finding difficulties in dyslexic children but has left unanswered questions about specificity and causality. Verbal and non-verbal fluency in dyslexics and non-dyslexic CA- and RA-matched controls were measured by means of cued lexical retrieval and stick design tasks. Evidence for dyslexia-related difficulties was found only at the word form level of access. At the semantic level, dyslexics' word finding was superior. Non-verbal (design) fluency was normal. Such findings implicate long-term linguistic memory processes in dyslexia and are consistent with neurocognitive models that emphasize diffuse left hemisphere dysfunction.