University Students with a Significant Historyof Reading Difficulties:What Is and Is Not Compensated?

This study examined the status of current reading, spelling, and phonological processing skills of 28 university students who reported a history of reading acquisition problems. The results indicated that 21 of these participants were currently able to comprehend text at a level expected for university students, although only 8 at a rate comparable to that of university students without a history of reading acquisition problems. In addition, all but two participants showed current problems in two or more of the additional areas examined, including word reading, decoding, spelling, and phonological processing. The performance of ten participants who had a recent diagnosis of reading disability was mostly indistinguishable from the performance of participants without such diagnosis, except on the phonological processing tasks. Statistics Canada recently published two stunning statistics: 42% of Canadian adults lack the functional literacy skills required in today’s information society (Desjardins, Murray, Clermont, & Werquin, 2005), and each 1% improvement in the average literacy rate would translate into 1.5% (or $18 billion) increase in annual GDP (Coulombe, Trembley, & Marchant, 2004). These statistics, albeit simplistic, effectively remind us that reading disabilities 195 Exceptionality Education Canada 2007, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 195-220 are not only a personal but also a societal tragedy. In this paper, we focus on the success stories: adults with a significant history of reading acquisition problems who are completing post-secondary education. More specifically, we examine to what extent they have compensated for their earlier problems both at the level of reading, and at the level of cognitive processes that support reading. Several studies have indicated that university students with a history of reading problems face persistent challenges in tasks that require manipulation of individual sounds or phonemes (e.g., Bruck, 1992; Gallagher, Laxon, Armstrong, & Frith, 1996; Snowling, Nation, Moxham, Gallagher, & Frith, 1997). It is frequently argued that phonological processing problems constitute the primary deficit in developmental dyslexia (e.g., Pennington, van Orden, Smith, Green, & Haith, 1990; Stanovich, 1988). This position is supported by findings that phonological processing skills of developmental dyslexics are poorer than their reading level would predict (e.g., Bruck, 1990; Stanovich, Siegel, & Gottardo, 1997), and that phonological processing shows a causal priority in longitudinal studies (e.g., Bradley & Bryant, 1985; Parrila, Kirby, & McQuarrie, 2004; Wagner et al., 1997) and exerts a distinctive influence on both the normal and abnormal development of reading skills (e.g., Badian, 1993; Kirby, Parrila, & Pfeiffer, 2003; Scarborough, 1990). While it seems clear that phonological processing problems persist (e.g., Ramus et al., 2003; Reid, Szczerbinski, Iskierka-Kasperek, & Hansen, 2007), it is far less clear that all university students with a history of reading problems experience phonological processing problems as adults (e.g., Rack, 1997), or that different domains of phonological processing skills – phonological awareness, rapid naming speed, and phonological memory – are equally affected. Similarly, we have little information as to the extent to which different reading and writing skills remain compromised. Some existing studies have identified a group of adults who, despite a history of reading problems, have reading comprehension levels which have improved to within the normal range by adulthood (e.g., Bruck, 1992, 1993; Gallagher et al., 1996; Hatcher, Snowling, & Griffiths, 2002; Lefly & Pennington, 1991; Miller-Shaul, 2005; Pennington et al., 1986; Snowling et al., 1997); particularly if the time constraints are removed (e.g., Mosberg & Johns, 1994). Lefly and Pennington (1991) described this group as “compensated dyslexics” and estimated that 22 to 25 percent of children with dyslexia will eventually compensate for their initial difficulties. However, decoding problems – expressed in inaccurate and slow pseudoword reading – seem to persist even if reading comprehension problems are no longer detectable (e.g., Pennington et al., 1990). Similarly, problems with word reading accuracy (Bruck, 1990) and fluency (Gallagher et 196 Exceptionality Education Canada, 2007, Vol. 17, No. 2 Parrila, Georgiou & Corkett