Word Recognition in a Phonemic Dyslexic Patient

Abstract

The systems underlying word recognition were investigated in a single case study of a patient (K.F.) with an acquired dyslexia. His reading performance was related to parts of speech, word frequency and word concreteness, and his reading errors were analysed. There was a very striking difference between his ability to read concrete and abstract words. Furthermore visual errors, which could not be attributed to a deficit at a peripheral level, predominated; phonemic errors did not occur. It is argued that these findings support a dual encoding model of word recognition, the present case illustrating the impairment of the phonemic route, a direct graphemic-semantic route being relatively spared. These findings and interpretation are for the most part consistent with Marshall and Newcombe's (1973) studies of acquired dyslexia. The present findings are discussed in terms of more general theories of word recognition.