Abstract
Do the language problems associated with reading disability extend to sentence-level knowledge? If so, how should these problems be characterized? In this study, second graders were presented with two different oral syntactic tasks, equivalent in grammatical complexity, but varying in the actual task demands placed upon the reader. In theJudgment task, subjects were asked to distinguish between grammatical and ungrammatical sentences; in theCorrection task, subjects were asked to remedy violations of grammaticality. Performance on these sentence-level tasks was, in turn, examined in relation to reading scores, memory span, and metaphonological skill. The Judgment task revealed a wide range of ability among second-graders, and scores were systematically affected by the syntactic nature of the violation. However, performance on Judgment was not associated with reading ability or metaphonological skill, and scores were minimally affected by short-term memory factors. Mean scores on the Correction task were comparable to those achieved in the Judgment task and were also systematically affected by syntactic factors. However, performance on Correction was strongly associated with reading ability and metaphonological skill, and was greatly affected by short-term memory factors. These results suggest that reading disability does not reflect problems in basic syntactic knowledge. Instead, sentence-level problems that have been observed in less-skilled readers may be caused by the nonlinguistic processing demands of the syntactic measures typically employed.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Blachman, B. 1986. Language factors in early reading. Paper delivered at the National Meeting of the Orton Dyslexia Society, Philadelphia, Pa.
Bohannon, J. N., Warren-Leubecker, A., and Hepler, N. 1984. Word-order awareness and early reading.Child Development 55:1541–1548.
Bowey, J. A. 1986. Syntactic awareness and verbal performance from pre-school to fifth grade.Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 15:285–308.
Brady, S. A. 1986. Short-term memory, processing and reading ability.Annals of Dyslexia 36:138–153.
Brady, S. A., Shankweiler, D., and Mann, V. A. 1983. Speech perception and memory coding in relation to reading ability.Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 35:345–367.
Byrne, B. 1981. Deficient syntactic control in poor readers: Is a weak phonetic memory code responsible?Applied Psycholinguistics 2:201–212.
Crain, S. and Shankweiler, D. 1988. Reading acquisition and language acquisition.In A. Davidson, G. Green, and G. Herman (eds.).Critical Approaches to Readability: Theoretical bases of linguistic complexity. Hillsdale, NJ: LEA (In Press).
Crain, S., Shankweiler, D., and Tuller, B. 1984. Preservation of sensitivity to closed-class items in agrammatism. Paper read at the Academy of Aphasia, Los Angeles, CA.
de Hirsh, K., Jansky, J., and Langford, W. 1966.Predicting Reading Failure. New York: Harper and Row.
Denckla, M. B. and Rudel, R. G. 1976. Naming of object-drawings by dyslexic and other learning disabled children.Brain and Language 3:1–15.
deVilliers, J. G. and de Villiers, P. A. 1978.Language Acquisition. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Dunn, L. M. 1959.Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service.
Fletcher, J. M., Satz, P., and Scholes, R. 1981. Developmental changes in the linguistic performance correlates of reading achievement.Brain and Language 13:78–90.
Flood, J. and Menyuk, P. 1983. The development of metalinguistic awareness and its relation to reading achievement.Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 4:65–80.
Forrest-Pressley. 1983.Cognitive and Meta-Cognitive Aspects of Reading. New York, NY: Springer-Verlag.
Fry, M., Johnson, C., and Muehl, S. 1970. Oral language production in relation to reading achievement among select second-graders.In D. J. Bakker and P. Satz (eds.).Specific Reading Disability: Advances in theory and method. Rotterdam: Rotterdam University Press.
Gleitman, L. R., Gleitman, H., and Shipley, E. 1972. The emergence of the child as a grammarian.Cognition 2:137–164.
Gleitman, L. R. and Rozin, P. 1977. The structure and acquisition of reading: Relation between orthography and the structured language.In A. S. Reber and D. L. Scarborough (eds.).Toward a Psychology of Reading. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Gleitman, L. R. and Wanner, E. 1984. Current issues in language learning.In M. H. Bornstein and M. E. Lamb (eds.).Developmental Psychology: An advanced textbook. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Hakes, D. 1980.The Development of Metalinguistic Abilities in Children. New York, NY: Springer-Verlag.
Hirsh-Pasek, K., Gleitman, L. R., and Gleitman, H. 1978. What did the brain say to the mind? A study of the detection and report of ambiguity by young children.In A. Sinclair, R. J. Jarvella and W. J. M. Levelt (eds.).The Child’s Conception of Language. New York, NY: Springer-Verlag.
Jorm, A. R. 1983. The cognitive and neurological basis of developmental dyslexia: A theoretical framework and review.Cognition 7:19–33.
Katz, R. B. 1986. Phonological deficiencies in children with reading disability: Evidence from an object-naming task.Cognition 22:225–257.
Kean, M-L. 1984. The question of linguistic anomaly in developmental dyslexia.Annals of Dyslexia 34:138–151.
Liberman, I. Y. 1971. Basic research in speech and lateralization of language: Some implications for reading disability.Bulletin of the Orton Society 21:71–87.
Liberman, I. Y. and Shankweiler, D. 1985. Phonology and the special problems of learning to read and write.Remedial and Special Education 6:8–17.
Linebarger, M. C., Schwartz, M. F., and Saffran, E. M. 1983. Sensitivity to grammatical structure in so-called agrammatic aphasics.Cognition 13:361–392.
Mann, V. A. 1984. Reading skills and language skill.Developmental Review 4:1–15.
Mann, V. A. and Liberman, I. Y. 1984. Phonological awareness and verbal short-term memory: Can they presage early reading problems?Journal of Learning Disabilities 17:592–599.
Mann, V. A., Liberman, I. Y., and Shankweiler, D. 1980. Children’s memory for sentences and wordstrings in relation to reading ability.Memory and Cognition 8:329–335.
Mann, V. A., Shankweiler, D., and Smith, S. T. 1984. The association between comprehension of spoken sentences and early reading ability: The role of phonetic representation.Journal of Child Language 11:627–643.
Mattingly, I. 1972. Reading, the linguistic process, and linguistic awareness.In J. F. Kavanagh and I. G. Mattingly (eds.).Language by Ear and by Eye. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Perfetti, C. A. 1985.Reading Ability. New York: Oxford University Press.
Perfetti, C. A. and Goldman, S. 1976. Discourse memory and reading comprehension skill.Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 14:33–42.
Perfetti, C. A. and Hogaboam, T. 1975. The relationship between single word decoding and reading comprehension skill.Journal of Educational Psychology 67:461–469.
Richardson, E., DiBenedetto, B. and Adler, A. 1982. Use of the Decoding Skills Test to study differences between good and poor readers.In K. Gadow and I. Bialer (eds.).Advances in Learning and Behavioral Disabilities (Vol. 1). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Rosner, J. and Simon, D. P. 1971. The auditory analysis test: An initial report.Journal of Learning Disabilities 4:40–48.
Rubin, H. and Liberman, I. Y. 1983. Exploring the oral and written language errors made by language disabled children.Annals of Dyslexia 33:111–120.
Ryan, E. B. and Ledger, G. W. 1979. Grammaticality judgments, sentence repetitions and sentence corrections of children learning to read.International Journal of Psycholinguistics 6:23–40.
Ryan, E. B. and Ledger, G. W. 1984. Learning to attend to sentence structure: Links between metalinguistic development and reading.In J. Downing and R. Valtin (eds.).Language Awareness and Learning to Read. New York: Springer-Verlag.
Scholl, D. M. and Ryan, E. B. 1980. Development of metalinguistic performance in the early school years.Language and Speech 23:199–211.
Shankweiler, D. and Crain, S. 1986a. Syntactic versus performance factors in the study of language disorders. Paper presented at the Academy of Aphasia.
Shankweiler, D. and Crain, S. 1986b. Language mechanisms and reading disorder: A modular approach.Cognition 24:139–168.
Smith, S. T. 1987. Syntactic comprehension in reading-disabled children. Doctoral dissertation. Storrs, CT: University of Connecticut.
Smith, S., Mann, V. A., and Shankweiler, D. 1986. Good and poor readers comprehension of spoken sentences: A study with the Token Test.Cortex 22:627–632.
Stanovich, K. E. 1982. Individual differences in the cognitive processes of reading: 1. Word decoding.Journal of Learning Disabilities 15:449–512.
Stein, C. L., Cairns, H. S., and Zurif, E. B. 1984. Sentence comprehension limitations related to syntactic deficits in reading-disabled children.Applied Psycholinguistics 5:305–322.
Torgesen, J. K. and Houck, D. 1980. Processing deficiencies of learning-disabled children who perform poorly on the digit span test.Journal of Educational Psychology 72:141–160.
Vellutino, F. R. 1979.Dyslexia: Theory and research. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Vogel, S. A. 1974. Syntactic abilities in normal and dyslexic children.Journal of Learning Disabilities 7:47–53.
Weinstein, R., and Rabinovitch, M. S. 1971. Sentence structure and retention in good and poor readers.Journal of Educational Psychology 62:25–30.
Whitehouse, C. C. 1983. Token test performance by dyslexic adolescents.Brain and Language 18:224–235.
Wiig, E. H. and Roach, M. A. 1975. Immediate recall of semantically varied sentences by learning disabled readers.Perceptual and Motor Skills 40:119–125.
Wiig, E. H., Semel, E. M., and Crouse, M. A. B. 1973. The use of English morphology by high-risk and learning disabled children.Journal of Learning Disabilities 7:59–67.
Winer, B. J. 1971.Statistical Principles in Experimental Design (2nd Ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
This research was supported in full by an NIH postdoctoral fellowship (#1-F32-HD-06543). This research benefited greatly from the insights of colleagues at Haskins Laboratories: Isabelle Liberman, Donald Shankweiler, Stephen Crain, Leonard Katz, and Virginia Mann.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Fowler, A.E. Grammaticality judgments and reading skill in grade 2. Annals of Dyslexia 38, 73–94 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02648249
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02648249