Traces of Sub-Lexical Dyslexia in a Semisyllabic Orthography

Abstract

Dyslexia refers to the impairment of reading ability. Different forms of dyslexia have been reported in the literature. A classic type of dyslexia in which children exhibit poor reading of non-words compared to true words is known as phonological dyslexia. From the perspectives of the prevailing models of reading aloud, this deficit is attributed to an impaired ‘sub-lexical’ route. However, phonological dyslexia is presumed to be rare in semisyllabic scripts (e.g., Indian scripts) due to the inherent transparency of the written symbols of this orthography. However, the existence of this type of dyslexia has not been empirically tested in this orthography till date. In this context, we aimed to investigate the existence of the equivalent of phonological dyslexia (i.e., sub-lexical dyslexia) in Kannada language. We administered a battery of word and non-word reading tests in a group of children studying in Kannada medium schools from I to VII Grades. Our results are suggestive of the existence of sub-lexical dyslexia in semisyllabic orthography.

Keywords

• Phonological skills
• Sub-lexical dyslexia
• Non-words
• Kannada
• Semisyllabic orthography