Inter-modal integration, temporal order recall and developmental changes in reading disabled children

Three hypotheses, each derived from a separate area of reading dis­ ability research, were investigated. It was proposed that reading disabled children would exhibit a specific impairment in the inter-modal matching of arbitrarily associated stimuli only, and in the recall of temporal order, at 8 years of age but not at 12 years. Two reading disabled (8 and 12 years) and two matched normal reader groups were tested on five naturally associated and five arbitrarily associated inter- and intra-modal integration tasks. No interactions between reading group and association type, or reading group and age, on the various matching tasks were obtained, but there was inconclusive evidence of an auditory temporal deficit among disabled readers. Thus, none of the hypotheses were confirmed, Several research problems were discussed, particularly the effect of variation in task discriminating power in most published studies, and the confounding factors of stimulus complexity and verbal labelling in the present study. It was concluded that, to overcome the problems of reading dis­ ability criteria and task relevance, research should be directed towards the developmental changes of identifiable pre-reading and reading skills