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The extraction of orthographic and phonological structure of printed words in adults with dyslexia
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Description: The current study investigated the extraction of orthographic and phonological structure of written words in dyslexic students. In adults without learning difficulties, Chetail and Content (2014) showed that the orthographic structure, as determined by the number of vowel letter clusters, influences visual word length estimation. The authors found also a phonological effect determined by the number of syllables of the words. In this present study, 22 French-speaking students diagnosed with dyslexia in childhood and 22 students without learning disabilities were compared. The task of word length estimation was proposed to all participants. The pattern of results obtained by Chetail and Content (2014) was replicated: length estimates were biased by both the number of syllables (phonological effect) and the number of vowel letter clusters (orthographic effect). Furthermore, the study showed a significant interaction between phonological bias and group. The phonological effect was less important in dyslexic students, suggesting reduced sensitivity to phonological parsing in reading. The heterogeneity of the pattern of results is discussed in the light of the particular profile of dyslexic students.