WORD RECOGNITION IN DEVELOPMENTAL DYSLEXIA - A CONNECTIONIST INTERPRETATION

We present a study of the accuracy, consistency, and speed of word nam ing in a dyslexic boy, JM, who has severe impairments in the ability t o use sub-lexical, phonological reading strategies. For words that he can recognise, JM's naming latencies do not differ from those of contr ol subjects matched for reading age, and he is generally consistent fr om one occasion to the next. He can also match printed homophones with their definitions-a skill that requires access to well-specified orth ographic representations. The data are interpreted as evidence for the creation of efficient recognition devices for words within JM's sight vocabulary. However, he shows a continuing inability to use phonologi cal decoding strategies to deal with words that he cannot recognize by sight. Overall we argue our results pose problems for stage models of reading development, and that they may best be interpreted within a c onnectionist framework of the development of word recognition skills.