READING STYLES IN CHILDREN WITH DYSLEXIA - A NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL EVALUATION OF MODALITY PREFERENCE ON THE READING STYLE INVENTORY

This study assessed the neuropsychological validity of the modality pr eference measures from the Reading Style inventory (RSI), an instrumen t that claims to measure left-hemisphere (analytic, sequential, audito ry) and right-hemisphere (holistic, simultaneous, visual) reading styl es, Older fluent readers (age-matched to the children with disabilitie s) rated their reading styles more strongly auditory and visual than n ondisabled beginning readers (reading-level-matched to the children wi th disabilities) and children with dyslexia, Compared to both control groups, the dyslexia group was unique in failing to demonstrate a high incidence of children with strong preferences in either modality, RSI ratings were unrelated to dichotic listening and, by inference, not r elated to the relative activation of the cerebral hemispheres in lingu istic processing, RSI performance was also unrelated to reading compre hension, word recognition, word attack, and verbal/performance IQ, The results do not support the underlying biological rationale of the RSI or its claims to accurately profile nondisabled novice readers and ch ildren with dyslexia in terms of their cerebral hemispheric preference s, However, the results do suggest the potential usefulness of the RSI in educational contexts,