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Does a Visual-Orthographic Deficit Contribute to Reading Disability? Continued from page 4.Previous|NextIn order to determine as precisely as possible the contribution to reading of the letter and number orientation test, constructs known to play important roles in reading development (e.g., phonological awareness, naming speed) were also included in this study. A phoneme deletion measure was chosen to represent phonological awareness (see Bowers & Ishaik, 2003) and rapid naming of letters to represent naming speed. These two types of tasks, along with sound blending and digit naming speed, have frequently been used as measures of phonological awareness and naming speed with some success (e.g., Manis, Doi, & Bhadha, 2000). The two questions this study sought to answer were: 1. Will visual recognition of letter/numeral reversals contribute independent variance to reading, after accounting for the contributions of phonological awareness and naming speed? 2. Are children with a deficit in the visual recognition of letter/numeral reversals more impaired readers than those without this deficit? METHOD PARTICIPANTS The participants were 207 children aged 8 to 10 years referred for an evaluation or a routine follow-up re-evaluation in a small suburban school district over three to four years. Reasons for referral included learning difficulties in reading, math, or written language; ADHD; or mild behavioral problems. There were 136 boys and 71 girls. Mean age was 8.8 years (SD = 0.6) and mean grade placement was 3.1 (SD = 0.5). All but two children were in Grades 2 or 3. Only children with a full scale IQ of at least 80, but not more than 130, were included as participants. All spoke English as their primary language. Ethnicity was Caucasian 93.7%, African-American 3.4%, and Hispanic 2.9%. Most parents were skilled or semiskilled workers, or had minor white collar jobs. MEASURES The following measures were included in the evaluation of the participants. Phonological Awareness. The child was asked to delete a syllable or a phoneme from a word in varying positions (e.g., bedroom without bed, pat without /p/) (Rosner, 1979). There were two practice items (syllable deletion) followed by three syllable and 10 phoneme deletion test items. All items were administered to all children. On local norms based on 166 children aged 6 to 10 years, the mean score at age 8 to 10 years was 10.6 (SD = 2.25). Scores are reported as the number correct out of a possible 13. Split-half reliability coefficients in an earlier local sample of 131 children in Grades 1-3 heterogeneous classes were .92 (ages 7-8) and .89 (ages 8-10). Naming Speed. The child names as fast as possible five lower case letters (oaspd) repeated 10 times in random order and displayed on a chart in a 5 ?? 10 format (RAN Letters: Denckla & Rudel, 1974). Using the Denckla and Rudel norms mean scores, reported as the time taken in seconds to complete the chart, are as follows: age 8, 31 seconds (SD = 7), age 9, 25 seconds (SD = 5), and age 10, 24 seconds (SD = 2). However, in a very recent renorming (Wolf & Denckla, 2005), mean scores differ from the original: age 8, 35 seconds (SD = 14), and ages 9-10, 31 seconds (SD = 10). Thus, a child classified as having a naming speed deficit on the early norms would not necessarily receive this classification on the recent norms. Test-retest reliability was .87 for 85 children aged 5 to 10 years (Wolf & Denckla, 2005). Bowers and Ishaik (2003) report test-retest reliability above .90 for their research samples of children in grades 2 through 5, and stability over one- and two-year periods of above .85. The weekend`s television: That`s just the way to Who it Independent, The (London) , Mar 28, 2005 by Thomas SutcliffeCHRISTOPER ECCLESTONE`S last role for Russell T Davies was as the returning Christ in the writer`s controversial theological drama, The Second Coming. This weekend, Ecclestone took the central role in another feverishly anticipated return, one that will also expose Davies to the beady invigilation of zealots and fundamentalists. And, frankly, I wonder whether even the reapparance of Christ would get more publicity than the all-fronts barrage that the BBC has rolled out for the return of Doctor Who: fold-out Radio Times front covers, a curtain-raising evening of nostalgia programmes, three- line whips on all the main chat shows and special screenings for MPs. All this for a tea-time serial that had the production values of a wonky supermarket trolley and won`t raise a flicker of recognition from anyone under the age of 35. Could it all possibly be worth it? You may have gathered from this that I do not figure among the true believers. I could no more debate the finer distinctions of the Doctor`s various avatars than describe the bogie arrangement of a Deltic locomotive. In fact, I feel I bring an indifference of an almost crystalline purity to the whole matter, so when I say that I thoroughly enjoyed it, the more devout among you will just have to aim off for the agnosticism. The trick of it is that it has reverence but lacks sanctimony. I have a vague memory that this was true of earlier incarnations of Doctor Who as well, the successive series of which involve an ever- deeper penetration of tongue into cheek. But I can`t recall they ever had jokes as good as these ones. Acknowledging that the alien monsters in the series rarely looked much more threatening than a reconditioned shop dummy, Davies cut to the heart of the matter and built his first episode round an alien presence that had co-opted every plastic object on earth, including breast implants and wheelie- bins, as part of its invasion force. Billie Piper`s Rose initially mistook their first assault as part of a rag-week stunt: "To get that many people dressed up and being silly, they must be students," she said, a nice nudge to the programme`s core demographic. Rose, the Doctor`s new sidekick, is solidly of this world while he`s just a concerned tourist, with an ecological approach to cosmological quarantine and a knowing way with local celebrities. "That won`t last he`s gay and she`s an alien," he said, speed- reading Rose`s copy of Hello!. The much-vaunted special effects with which the series has been retro- fitted struck me as being as clunky as ever, and Ecclestone`s performance was a bit too reminiscent of a nerdy teenager, but it has a real heartbeat or perhaps even two. Fingersmith, Peter Ransley`s adaptation of Sarah Waters`s novel, is as fully specced a bit of Victorian Gothic as you could possibly desire. It comes with guttering candles, cruel bibliomanes, orphans, madhouses and thieves` dens as standard, and then the whole thing is turbo-charged with a sapphic love story. Last night, Sue was sent to work in Maud`s house by Richard Rivers, a vicious male con man (strictly speaking a redundancy, since "vicious" and "male" appear to be interchangeable terms). Rivers wanted Sue to help him secure the affections of Maud, after which he would marry her, steal her fortune and consign her to a lunatic asylum. But Sue found herself strangely drawn to the intended victim. "On a wedding night, what must a wife do?" asked Maud innocently, on the eve of her elopement. Sue gamely offered a hands-on sketch and then, quite understandably, got carried away by the demonstration. The butler didn`t see much really, but it`s been a long time since a glove has been removed with quite such fluttery erotic insinuation. I came over all faint towards the end and had to call for smelling salts, but I`m hoping to be fully recovered by next weekend. Speed reading index
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