Reading aloud in a language with transparent orthography: characteristics of adults with dyslexia
Reading aloud in a language with transparent orthography: characteristics of adults with dyslexia

Summary/Abstract: Dyslexia is a lifelong condition whose manifestations change with age (Davies et al., 2017). Although dyslexia may present differently in adulthood than in early childhood, the associated difficulties persist, particularly in reading accuracy, reading rate, and comprehension. These difficulties are particularly pronounced when reading pseudowords, unfamiliar words, or complex texts, and they are often accompanied by a persistent lack of self-correction (Pedersen et al., 2016; Provazza et al., 2019; Re et al., 2011; Reis et al., 2020). However, little is known about the characteristics of dyslexia in adulthood, particularly in languages with transparent orthographies (Reis et al., 2020). The aim of this study was to investigate the characteristics of adults with dyslexia in reference to reading aloud in Croatian, a language with transparent orthography. The study included 14 participants: 7 people with dyslexia (PwD) and 7 typical readers (TR, control group). The results indicate that PwD showed poorer performance than TR when reading pseudowords, real words, and texts, since they make more types and number of errors and are less inclined to correct these errors. However, the most persistent and striking feature of dyslexia in adulthood continues to be slow reading. This is consistent with the results of several studies based on transparent languages (e.g., Re et al., 2011; Reis et al., 2020, Suárez-Coalla & Cuetos, 2015). In the group of PwD, substitutions, omissions, and additions of graphemes and morphemes were most frequent, followed by substitutions of whole words. The error patterns of most participants indicate so-called phonological dyslexia.

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