spelling pronunciation exercises

[Gordon, Matthew J.]

This is not my area by any stretch so I had a look at the article you reference, which I think is:
Paulescu et al. 2001. Dyslexia: Cultural diversity and biological unity. Science, 291: 2165-7.

I gather your claim that "50% of dyslexia is 'caused' by the mismatch of letters and sounds" is based on the observation that dyslexia is diagnosed at roughly twice the rate in Italy than in the US. This statistic says nothing about the causes of dyslexia. In fact, the paper is pretty unequivocal in noting that there is no differences between Italian, French, and English dyslexics at a neurological level. Here's what the researchers conclude:

"Is dyslexia a disorder with a universal neuro-anatomical basis, or is it a different disorder in shallow and deep orthographies? Our results are clear-cut. They show that dyslexia has a universal basis in the brain and can be characterized by the same neurocognitive deficit. Clearly, the manifestation in reading behavior is less severe in a shallow orthography [e.g. Italian]. However, our results show that if more sensitive tests were available, the neurocognitive deficit would be detected. Although Italian dyslexics read more accurately than French or English dyslexics, they showed the same degree of impairment on reading latencies and reading-related phonological tasks relative to their controls. We conclude that a phonological processing deficit is a universal problem in dyslexia and causes literacy problems in both shallow and deep orthographies. However, in languages with shallow orthography, such as Italian, the impact is less, and dyslexia has a more hidden existence. By contrast, deep orthographies like that of English and French may aggravate the literacy impairments of otherwise mild cases of dyslexia."

So it seems that changing the orthography of English wouldn't decrease the number of dyslexics though it might just keep more of them in the closet.


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Tom Zurinskas
Sent: Mon 10/2/2006 9:14 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject:      Re: spelling pronunciation exercises
 
...
You see, the objective is to achieve an optimal letter/sound
spelling correspondance to make English easier to read.  (50% of dyslexia is
"caused" by the mismatch of letters and sounds - Paulescu 2000 - I think I
said Stanovich before, sorry).  But to change English spelling is not
doable.  Teddy Roosevelt along with Andrew Carnegie tried and failed.  So
the only approach is to change pronunciation to match spelling.
Pronunciation seems unfettered, changing all the time.  Nobody seems to have
any interest in controlling it.  So it could be possible to affect change
toward the alphabetical principle making pronunciation fit current spelling.
  W-hat think?

Tom Z

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org