Phonology, reading acquisition, and dyslexia: Insights from connectionist models

The development of reading skill and bases of developmental dyslexia were e xplored using connectionist models. Four issues were examined: the acquisit ion of phonological knowledge prior to reading, how this knowledge facilita tes learning to read, phonological and nonphonological bases of dyslexia, a nd effects of literacy on phonological representation. Compared with simple feedforward networks, representing phonological knowledge in an attractor network yielded improved learning and generalization. Phonological and surf ace forms of developmental dyslexia, which are usually attributed to impair ments in distinct lexical and nonlexical processing "routes," were derived from different types of damage to the network. The results provide a comput ationally explicit account of many aspects of reading acquisition using con nectionist principles.