Verbatim and gist recall of sentences by dyslexic and non-dyslexic adults

Copyright # 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. DYSLEXIA 12: 177–194 (2006)

Published online 28 February 2006 in Wiley InterScience(www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/dys.320

& Verbatim and Gist Recall ofSentences by Dyslexic andNon-Dyslexic AdultsT. R. Miles*, Guillaume Thierry, Judith Roberts andJosie Schiffeldrin

School of Psychology, University of Wales, Bangor, Gwynedd LL57 2AS, UK

Forty-eight college students, 24 of them dyslexic, were presentedwith four sentences of increasing complexity. Participants wereasked to repeat each sentence and a record was kept of the numberof repetitions required before 100% correct accuracy was achieved.None of the 24 control participants required a total of more thaneight repetitions over the four sentences, whereas among thedyslexics the total number of repetitions needed ranged from one to25. Dyslexic participants were unpredictable in their performancefrom one level of difficulty to the next and inter-individualvariability was far greater in the dyslexic group than in the controlgroup. Overall, despite their relatively poor performance inachieving verbatim accuracy relative to non-dyslexic participants,dyslexic individuals regularly managed to preserve the gist of thesentences. Some theoretical issues arising from these results arediscussed. Copyright # 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: dyslexia; recall; verbatim; gist

INTRODUCTION

We take the view that dyslexia can most usefully be regarded as afamily of difficulties (Miles, 1993). Despite wide individual differ-ences, a common pattern}usually but not invariably including

difficulty in acquiring literacy skills}is observed. One of the core deficits indyslexia is a weakness at the phonological level, i.e., a weakness in thememorizing and ordering of speech sounds (see in particular Catts, 1989; Rack,1994; Snowling, 2000). There is good evidence that semantic processing isunimpaired (see, for instance, Ellis & Miles, 1981; Miles & Ellis, 1981). There isalso support for this view in Thomson (1982) whose dyslexic participants showedno impairment on the Similarities item of the British Ability Scales (Elliott,Murray, & Pearson, 1979, 1983).

*Correspondence to: T. R. Miles, School of Psychology, Brigantia Building, Penrallt Road,Bangor LL57 2AS, UK. e-mail: [email protected]

Dissociation between indices of phonological and semantic processing hasrecently been observed in some unpublished research by one of the present authors(GT) on the basis of studies using event-related potentials (ERPs). An earlier ERPstudy (Connolly & Phillips, 1994) involved comparing brain responses when asentence ended with (i) the most expected word, (ii) a totally inappropriate word,(iii) a semantically appropriate word, which was not the most expected word andstarted with a different phoneme, and (iv) an inappropriate word starting with thesame phoneme as the most expected word. For instance, in the sentence startingwith ‘The gambler had a streak of bad. . .’, condition (i) ended with ‘luck’, (ii) with‘cream’, (iii) with ‘temper’, and (iv) with ‘luggage’. Connolly and Philips observedtwo ERP modulations of interest: one peaking around 270 ms after stimulus onsetand sensitive to phonological expectation and one peaking around 400 ms (theclassical N400; Kutas & Hillyard, 1980). When using a similar design, GT andcollaborators observed similar ERP patterns for semantic processing in 12 dyslexicadults and 12 controls, but differences were found for the phonologicalmanipulation. ERP indices of phonological processing tended to be delayed andof lesser amplitudes in dyslexic participants, whereas indices of semanticprocessing were indistinguishable across groups.

Data from studies on word recall have suggested that phonological skills andlexical knowledge correlate with one another in children (Gathercole & Baddeley,1989; Gathercole, Hitch, Service, & Martin, 1997). Nonsense word recall tasks,moreover, are particularly efficient at revealing some phonological deficits,probably because semantic information is unavailable and cannot help retrievingthe exact form of heard words (cf. Muter, Hulme, & Snowling, 1997). Moregenerally, verbal working memory is considered a good index of cognitivedevelopment in children (Alloway, Gathercole, Adams, & Willis, 2005). Overall, itremains unclear whether phonological deficits and verbal working memoryweakness in dyslexia have the same origin, are the consequence of one another,or have relatively independent origins.

In the Daneman and Carpenter task (1980), participants are required to readsentences which are progressively longer and to recall the final word of all thesentences in a series. Verbal working memory capacity is measured as the longestlist of final words they can recall on the majority of trials (see also Tirre & Pena,1992; Turner & Engle, 1989). This task has been used to investigate verbalworking memory in developmental dyslexia but it has been argued that this taskdoes not probe the working memory used for language comprehension (Waters& Caplan, 1996). Whole sentence repetition tasks, therefore, have the advantageof taping both into verbal working memory and language comprehension,especially when patterns of errors are considered.

In some exploratory studies of sentence repetition, Miles (1993, pp. 138–139)reported as follows:

In a number of cases I was able to give my subjects the sentence memory item whichcomes in the Terman and Merrill test (year xii, no.4). It runs: ‘At the summer camp thechildren get up early in the morning to go swimming’. On almost all occasions the mainpoints of the sentence were supplied, but it was very common for a number of words tobe left out, for example ‘early in the morning.’

The procedure used by Miles (1993) was to request repetition of a sentence asmany times as necessary for the participant to achieve verbatim accuracy. Miles

T.R. Miles et al.178


found that although the general meaning of the sentence seemed to beunderstood, dyslexic participants often continued to get the sentence slightlywrong even after as many as five or six repetitions.

For instance, one of the participants in Miles (1993) produced the followingresponses:

1. ‘The little boys get up early in the morning and go and have a swim.’2. ‘At the summer camp the boys get up early in the morning to have a swim.’3. ‘The summer}no, the boys get up in the morning and go and have a swim.’4. ‘At the summer camp the children get up early in the morning and go for a swim.’5. (Correct repetition)6. ‘At the summer camp the children get up early to go swimming.’7. ‘At the summer camp the children get up early to go swimming.’

Although a correct repetition was produced in trial 5, the responses wereincorrect again in trials 6 and 7. Nevertheless, the overall meaning of what wassaid was in all cases close to that of the original. This example raises the issue ofstability in sentence memorization in developmental dyslexia.

Inconsistency or instability in the memorization of spellings has been studiedby Dobson (1978) and by Kibel (2004), but, to our knowledge, instability in thememorization of sentences has not received any systematic investigation. Thereare, indeed, norms which have been obtained in North America (Gardner, 1996)for the memorisation of sentences of varying length and complexity, but no studyhas yet investigated sentence memorization in developmental dyslexia.

Apart from memorization instability, there is the issue of accuracy. Severalstudies have shown that dyslexic individuals are able to grasp the gist of awritten passage although they fail to read it with verbatim accuracy (e.g.Mosberg & Johns, 1994). Teachers of dyslexic children, for instance, commonlyreport that their pupils often ignore what they call ‘the little words’}conjunc-tions, particles, etc.}even though they understand the general sense of what isbeing read. Congruent with these views, studies by Nicholson (1991), Nicholson,Bailey, and McArthur (1991) and Nicholson, Lillas, and Rzoska (1988) haveshown that poor readers are more reliant on context than good readers.

Miles and Miles (1990, pp. 208–209) describe a dyslexic boy aged 11 who read‘his mother’ when what was written was ‘Mrs Jones’ (who was indeed the boy’smother), ‘Sunday’ for ‘Saturday’ when the context required a day of the week,and ‘said’ for ‘asked’ or ‘replied’. It is possible, therefore, that the failure to readaccurately may also extend to accuracy of sentence memorization.

The observations made by Miles (1993) were informal, with no control databeing reported, and it is unclear, therefore, whether the memorization difficultieswhich he reports are peculiar to dyslexics or whether they are found in non-dyslexics also. The present study was designed to address this question bysystematically comparing the performance of dyslexic and control studentsduring a sentence repetition test.

PARTICIPANTS, APPARATUS AND METHOD

Participants were 48 university students aged 18–35 who were functioningadequately in a university environment. Twenty-four of them (D1–D24) were

Verbatim and Gist Recall 179


diagnosed with developmental dyslexia. To qualify as a member of the dyslexicgroup the participant had to be registered on the panel of dyslexic students at theDyslexia Unit, University of Wales, Bangor. All of them had to produce anappropriate certificate from a chartered educational psychologist confirmingtheir dyslexia. In both the dyslexic and control groups, there were 12 males (1–12)and 12 females (13–24). To ensure that no undiagnosed dyslexics found their wayinto the control group (C1–C24), all control participants were given aquestionnaire (Vinegrad, 1994) consisting of 20 items, positive answers to whichwere taken to have face validity as indicators of dyslexia in adults}for example,‘When using the telephone, do you tend to get the numbers mixed up when youdial?’ To qualify as a member of the control group the participant had to reply‘no’ to at least 12 of these 20 items. The working memory span and other indicesof executive function of participants were not measured at the time, although itwould have been retrospectively desirable. For ethical reasons, it was notpossible to contact the participants after the data collection had taken place toobtain such measures but we believe that cognitive assessment should be asextensive as technically possible to allow all potential correlations to be tested.

The test sentences were taken from the Terman and Merrill (1937) intelligencetest. Four sentences of increasing difficulty as judged by the ‘mental age’ level onthe Terman and Merrill test were selected:

Sentence 1 (Year viii)Billy has made a beautiful boat out of wood with his sharp knife.Sentence 2 (Year ix)Yesterday we went for a ride in our car along the road that crosses the bridge.Sentence 3 (average adult)The red headed woodpeckers made a terrible fuss as they tried to drive the

young away from the nest.Sentence 4 (superior adult III)At the end of the week the newspaper published a complete account of the

experiences of the great explorer.

It should be noted that in the original Terman and Merrill tests two sentencesare set at each level and that the item is passed if the person correctly repeats oneof them. On the assumption that there were negligible changes in the normsbetween 1937 and the present time, exact comparisons in terms of ‘mental age’between the participants on whom the original norms were standardized and theparticipants in the present study would be inappropriate. It is safe, however, toassume that the order of difficulty remains the same and we assumed that alluniversity students would perform well on sentence 1 and 2.

To ensure standardized stimulus presentation, the sentences were presented bymeans of a tape recorder. If the participant responded correctly the experimenterpassed immediately to the next sentence. If, however, a mistake was made, thetape recorder was set to play the sentence again and the participant asked torepeat it. The number of repetitions needed before 100% accuracy was achievedwill be referred to in what follows as the participant’s ‘repetition score’.

On the basis of results from a pilot study and in the course of the presentexperiment, the maximum value allowed for a repetition score was set at 15(three participants exceeded this ceiling: D8, D9 and D17). Responses wererecorded by means of a second tape recorder to allow monitoring of error types.



The null hypothesis was that dyslexics and controls would not be different interms of repetition scores.

Post-hoc examination of the errors made led to the adoption of the followingeight categories of error:

1. Phonetic errors: where the participant produced a word phonologically closeto the target word (for example belt for boat in sentence 1).

2. Omission errors: where the participant missed out a word without replacing it(for example, made a fuss in place of made a terrible fuss in sentence 3).

3. Inclusion errors: where a participant included a word which was not in theoriginal sentence (for example the newspaper had published in place of thenewspaper published in sentence 4).

4. Substitution errors: where the participant substituted another word for thetarget word (for example adventures in place of experiences in sentence 4).

5. Plural errors: where the participant either inserted or omitted a plural (forexample, newspapers in place of newspaper in sentence 4).

6. Makeshift errors}where the participant used ‘something’ or ‘whatever’ inplace of the target word (for example, a ride in our car something across the bridgein place of a ride in our car along the road that crosses the bridge in sentence 2).

7. Order errors: where the participant correctly reproduced the sense of a phrasebut changed the word order (for example, of the great explorer’s experiences inplace of of the experiences of the great explorer in sentence 4).

8. ‘Did not continue’ errors: where participants stopped within the sentence anddid not continue.

On the basis of preliminary observations (Miles, 1993), our first prediction wasthat dyslexic individuals would have higher overall repetition scores thancontrols. We also predicted that the proportions of the total number of errors inthe different categories would be different in the two groups. Thus, secondly,because of their relatively poorer phonological skills, we expected dyslexics tomake more phonetic errors than controls. Thirdly, the overall reducedmemorization capacity of dyslexics was expected to show in the proportion ofomission and ‘did not continue’ errors, there being over-representation in thecase of the dyslexics in comparison with the controls. Fourthly, due to theirhypothetically good semantic skills, we predicted that they would not differ fromcontrols in their ability to find substitute words; this type of error was expected,therefore, not to be overrepresented in the dyslexic group. Fifthly, the relativelyimpaired capacity of dyslexics to pay attention to detail (see the Introduction)was expected to yield an over-representation of plural errors. In view of theextent to which Orton’s theory of strephosymbolia (Orton, 1937–1989) has beencriticized, we deemed it imprudent to make any predictions about order errors.Finally, we predicted in the case of inclusion and makeshift errors that theseerrors would be under-represented in the dyslexic group since inserting new ormakeshift words requires more attentional resources.

To sum up, we hypothesized that, in comparison with the controls, thedyslexics would (i) need a greater number of repetitions overall, (ii) make agreater proportion of phonological errors, (iii) make a greater proportion ofomission and ‘did not continue’ errors; (iv) would not make a greater proportionof substitution errors, (v) would make a greater proportion of plural errors; and(vi) make a smaller proportion of insertion and makeshift errors.



RESULTS

For each of the four sentences, Figure 1 depicts the number of repetitionsrequired in the two participant groups. Overall, the repetition score wassignificantly larger (Mann–Whitney U ¼ 77, p50:001) in the dyslexic group(Total ¼ 305) than in the control group (Total ¼ 78). No control participantneeded more than four repetitions for any one sentence and no more than eightrepetitions overall (i.e. over the four sentences) but only six dyslexic participantsneeded fewer than eight repetitions in total. Dyslexic participants needed morerepetitions overall for each of the test sentences (Sentence 1: U ¼ 136:5, p50:001;Sentence 2: U ¼ 127, p50:001; Sentence 3: U ¼ 167, p50:01; Sentence 4: U ¼ 134,p50:001). There were no differences between males and females (Dyslexics:U ¼ 65:5, non-significant; Controls U ¼ 53:5, non-significant).

The individual performance looked extremely variable in the dyslexic group ascompared to controls. We therefore tested whether the distribution of repetitionscores in the dyslexic group was significantly different from that observed in the

0 15+

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Figure 1. Number of repetitions needed by the dyslexics and the controls before verbatimaccuracy was achieved for the four levels of difficulty. The plots can be seen as‘performance matrices’, with difficulty increasing from left to right and each line depicting

the performance of a participant.



control group. Using the Kolmogorov–Smirnov statistical test, we found asignificant difference of the distribution of errors in the two groups with amaximum difference of 0.75, K–S z ¼ 2:70, p50:001: If, therefore, the controlgroup is considered as a sample representative of the normal population,dyslexic adults show an abnormal distribution of errors.

With regard to the different categories of error and the issue of over- andunder-representation, since overall there were 902 repetitions needed by thedyslexics and 125 by the controls, the expected percentage split is 88–12. Thusany category of error where the percentage split in favour of the dyslexics isgreater than 88% signifies an over-representation of errors in that particularcategory.

Figure 2 shows how the various categories of error were represented amongthe dyslexics and the controls. Table 1 provides the scores for dyslexics andcontrols expressed as percentages and the percentage splits, as defined above. Ascan be seen in Table 2, the differences between dyslexics and controls reacheda satisfactory level of confidence only for omissions and makeshift errors(p corrected for multiple comparisons).

The difference for the proportion of phonetic errors was in the predicteddirection but not at an acceptable level of confidence, the percentage split being94–6 (Table 2).

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Figure 2. Absolute (a) and relative (b) distributions of error types in the dyslexic andcontrol groups.



As predicted, the proportion of omission errors was significantly greater in thedyslexic group (p50:05, corrected for multiple comparisons) and this type oferror was over-represented (percentage split = 94–6; Table 2 and Figure 2).

When dyslexics were compared with controls in respect of the proportion of‘did not continue’ errors, the percentage split (92–8) was in the predicteddirection. However, when the correction for multiple comparisons was broughtin, the difference did not reach an acceptable level of significance.

As predicted, there was neither an over- nor an under-representation ofsubstitution errors in the dyslexic group (percentage split ¼ 84216).

The proportion of plural errors did not differ between dyslexics and controls,the percentage split being 83–17. The pattern was similar for order errors, forwhich we had no predictions.

Inclusion errors were under-represented in the dyslexic group (percentagesplits 78–22) but the difference between groups did not reach a satisfactory levelof confidence.

Finally, dyslexic individuals made a significantly lower proportion of make-shift errors (p50:05, corrected for multiple comparisons), the percentage splitbeing 67–33.

Table 1. Number of errors in the different categories for the dyslexic and controlparticipants (with the percentage of the group’s total errors given in columns 3 and 5 andthe percentage ratio, i.e., the number of errors in each category for dyslexics and controls)

Error type Dyslexics Ratio (%) Controls Ratio (%) Percent split

Phonetic 102 11.3 6 4.8 94–6Omission 310 34.4 21 16.8 94–6Inclusion 14 1.6 4 3.2 78–22Substitution 276 30.6 54 43.2 84–16Plural 69 7.6 14 11.2 83–17Makeshift 26 2.9 13 10.4 67–33Order 49 5.4 8 6.4 84–16Did not continue 56 6.2 5 4.0 92–8Total 902 100 125 100 88–12

Table 2. Confidence levels for the differences between dyslexics and controls for thedifferent categories of error

Error type Chi-squared P Adjusted p

Phonetic 5.04 0.037 nsOmission 15.87 50.001 50.05Inclusion 1.69 0.348 nsSubstitution 7.07 0.008 nsPlural 1.35 0.245 nsMakeshift 14.77 50.001 50.05Order 0.18 0.46 nsDid not continue 0.63 0.426 ns

Note: Column 4 gives the confidence levels when the Bonferroni adjustment is applied. Since there were eightcategories of error, the p value has to be 50.00623 if a result is to be significant at the 5% level; ns = non-significant.



The three categories of error where the percentage splits were highest in thecase of the dyslexics were phonetic, inclusion and ‘did not continue’ errors(Figure 2).

We also counted the errors made on the first repetition for each sentence (seeTable 3). The distribution of errors was more comparable across groups for thefirst repetition than for the total number of repetitions. Still, the Kolmogorov–Smirnov statistical test showed significant difference in the distribution of errorsin the two groups (z ¼ 1:588, p50:02). The proportions of errors by error type,however, did not differ significantly between groups (p > 0:05).

For reasons of space it is not possible to include every response from everyparticipant.y For illustration purposes, however, we include the responses of twodyslexic male participants selected at random (D1 and D2; see Appendix). Ouraim, in particular, is to illustrate the apparent dissociation between verbatimaccuracy and gist comprehension. In these two examples, it is clearly apparentthat the dyslexic participants struggle to repeat the sentences with perfectaccuracy. However, none of their production is meaningless and none deviatessignificantly from the original meaning of the sentence.

DISCUSSION

Verbatim and Gist Recall

The results set out in Table 1 and Figure 1 support the claim that most English-speaking dyslexic adults have more problems over verbatim recall than controlparticipants matched for age and level of education. The same pattern is foundfor errors made on first repetitions only. Additionally, since it is unlikely thatsuch problems start to emerge at the onset of adulthood, it seems reasonable togeneralize this result to dyslexic children.

We believe that all the participants in this study understood the meaning ofwhat was being said, i.e., the sentence’s gist. Thus when they failed to rememberthe exact words of a sentence many of the participants produced substitute

Table 3. Number of errors in the different categories for the dyslexic and controlparticipants (with the percentage of the group’s total errors given in columns 3 and 5 andthe percentage ratio, i.e., the number of errors in each category for dyslexics and controls)for the first repetition only (cumulated across sentence types 1–4)

Error type Dyslexics Ratio (%) Controls Ratio (%) Percent split

Phonetic 6 5.5 1 1.7 86–14Omission 25 22.7 20 33.3 56–44Substitution 44 40.0 20 33.3 69–31Plural 9 8.2 9 15.0 50–50Makeshift 8 7.3 6 10.0 57–43Did not continue 18 16.4 4 6.7 82–18Total 110 100 60 100 65–35

yA full record is available on request from the first author.



words (the most frequent error type, see Tables 1 and 2, Figure 2). However,dyslexic participants did not show a higher proportion of substitution errorsthan did the controls. This result provides support for the view that accessto the meaning of words is preserved in dyslexics. Even when only errors madeon first repetition were considered, we found no significant difference betweendyslexic and control participants. The trend seen here, however, seemsinconsistent with results obtained by Alloway and Gathercole (2005), whoreported that children with poor phonological memory skills are less likely tomake substitution errors than children with good phonological memory skills.First, it is important to stress the fact that Alloway and Gathercole (2005)compared groups of children differing in their working memory skills whereaswe compare two groups of adults, one dyslexic and the other not. Second, theyused sentences that were relatively simple in structure compared to the sentencesfrom the Terman and Merrill test. Third, our data are compatible with theirs inthe sense that dyslexic participants made significantly more nonsubstitutionserrors (omission and makeshift errors) than controls. Importantly, Alloway andGathercole (2005) note that semantic information of the sentences wasremarkably preserved in both their high and low functioning groups, since bothgroups were more likely to produce synonyms than unrelated words. In ourstudy, inspection of the substitutions showed that both controls and dyslexicssystematically produced synonyms or strongly related words in place of thetarget word.

It should be noted at this point that the sentences contained no technical termsor unfamiliar words, and, since the participants were university students, thepossibility that they were responding like idiots savants repeating words withoutunderstanding their meaning is very unlikely. Furthermore, this hypothesiswould be very difficult to square with the even proportion of substitution errorsmade by dyslexic and control participants, since using a word of similar meaningin place of another requires accurate recollection of the meaning of the originalword.

The only two types of errors for which dyslexic and control participantsshowed differences at a sufficient level of confidence were omission andmakeshift errors (a higher proportion of omission errors and a lower proportionof makeshift errors). Both types of error are fundamentally errors of memoriza-tion rather than errors of misunderstanding, and the results suggest poor short-term retention capacity in dyslexics which might relate to weak working memoryspan (Alloway & Gathercole, 2005; Brosnan et al., 2002; see also McCarthy &Warrington, 1987; Miles & Ellis, 1981; Rispens & Been, 2004) or low attentionalcapacity (Hari & Renvall, 2001). We conclude, therefore, that all the participantsunderstood the gist of the sentences in the commonly accepted meaning of theword ‘gist’.

Signs of Perceptual Deficit

Verbatim accuracy requires close attention to the precise details of speech sounds.Thus if speech sounds are poorly represented in dyslexics (Snowling, 2000), it isnot surprising that exact reproduction presents them with a significant problem,whereas grasping the meaning of a sentence does not. The difference in theproportion of phonetic errors made by dyslexics and controls did not reach a



satisfactory level of significance if an adjustment is made for multiplecomparisons. More surprisingly, we did not find any sign of difference in theproportion of plural errors which we had predicted. Although this might be due,partly, to the very low number of plural error in both participant groups, our datado not, as they stand, provide evidence for a deficit in processing subtleperceptual variations, but this conclusion is limited to the type of errors weregistered (phonemes and plurals) and cannot account for more subtle perceptualdifferences hypothesized in the literature (Goswami et al., 2002).

Inter- and Intra-individual Performance Variability

Miles and Haslum (1986) had noted that the responses of the dyslexic 10-year-olds in their study, unlike those of the controls, did not conform to aPoisson distribution. Dyslexic individuals, therefore, appear to be unpredictablefrom one level of difficulty to the next, and, even, from one trial to the next. Theymay ‘miss out’ on one occasion and not on another. A similar pattern ofunpredictability was observed in the present study leading to significantdifferences in the distribution of errors between the dyslexic and the controlgroup.

Dyslexic participant D8, for instance, needed more than 15 repetitions forsentence 2 but none for sentence 3. Similarly participant D16 needed sevenrepetitions for sentence 1 but only three for sentence 2. The performance ofdyslexic participants was therefore not only particularly variable from onesentence to the next; it could be better on a difficult sentence than on an easierone. This intra-individual variability is best seen in Figure 1: the trend for anincrease in the number of repetitions with sentence difficulty seen in the controlgroup is much less obvious in the dyslexic performance matrix.

It is interesting that, although on a particular occasion a dyslexic participantmight require more than 10 repetitions, this never happened to the sameparticipant more than once. For example, participant D17 who continued torespond incorrectly even after 15 repetitions for sentence 4, required only twoother repetitions in all for the other three sentences. If it had been the case that afew dyslexic participants had exceptionally weak memory skills, such indivi-duals would have had high repetition scores across all or most of the sentencesbut this was not the case. Hampshire (1980) attests that dyslexics can have‘good days’ and ‘bad days’, but the whole area of fluctuation in the performanceof skilled tasks has not, in our view, received the attention which it deserves.Although Hampshire speaks in terms of days, we find that the fluctuationin the performance of the dyslexics can vary dramatically within a matter ofminutes.

An expression which some of our participants have used when asked toexplain what they feel when they repeatedly fail to repeat a sentence is: ‘My brainseized up’. This suggests that some individuals are aware that performance couldhave been better had the circumstances been different. Jameson (2004) has calledattention to the danger to which dyslexics are exposed when they have to giveevidence in a court of law. The performance instability observed here appears tobe characteristic of dyslexia and it is particularly liable to occur if the person isunder stress.



Overlap in Performance Between Dyslexics and Controls

The highest number of repetitions required by a member of the controlgroup was 8, but only six dyslexic participants required fewer than 8.The existence of overlap in performance is a problem which arises for anyresearcher who compares clinical and control groups. In the case of thepresent study it is pertinent to ask why participants D5, D6, D10, D13,D19 and D21 performed no differently from the controls. That they weredisplaying other manifestations of dyslexia cannot be doubted, given thestringency of our selection procedures, but any theory of dyslexia which claimsto predict how all dyslexics will behave must be at fault if some of them fail tobehave as predicted. Although poor memorization is thought to be an importantfeature in dyslexia, 25% of the dyslexics were as effective at memorization asthe controls. Miles (1993) has reported the case of one dyslexic individualwho recalled 9 digits correctly yet clearly showed many other dyslexic indicators.It must be kept in mind that dyslexia is a ‘multimorph syndrome’ withno specific symptom common to every instance. In other words, dyslexiashould be considered a ‘disjunctive’ concept: one person may manifest symptomsa, b, c, and d, another person symptoms b, c, d, and e. There is for instanceindependent evidence for the view that dyslexic manifestations can occur inthe absence of severe literacy problems (Miles, Wheeler, & Haslum, 2003; Miles,in press), quite apart from the many individuals with literacy problems whoare not dyslexic.

Differences in the Error Types

Although dyslexic individuals produced a greater number of phoneticerrors than controls, the difference did not reach an acceptable level ofsignificance. Nevertheless, this type of error was over-represented relative toother error types in the dyslexic group. Although not conclusive, this result isconsistent with a phonological impairment in developmental dyslexia (Ramus,2004). However, it must be kept in mind that phonological deficits in dyslexia arebest revealed by tasks requiring phoneme awareness rather than simple sentencerepetition.

The greater proportion of omission errors on the part of the dyslexics waspredicted. Although dyslexic participants made more ‘did not continue’ errorsthan controls, the difference did not reach an acceptable level of significance.However, these errors tended to be over-represented in the dyslexic group.Together, the results suggest a particular weakness in memorization in and/orrecall from short-term memory in dyslexics. The absence of a significant overalldifference in ‘did not continue’ errors seems surprising, however. Dyslexicsconscious of their deficit are known for their particular determination (forexamples see, Miles, 2004). In the context of this experiment, most dyslexicindividuals may have shown a reluctance to ‘give up’ within a sentence when acontrol participant might have chosen to do so.

It is interesting that the difference between dyslexics and controls with respectto proportion of substitution errors was non-significant. Although the overallnumber of substitution errors was greater in dyslexics than controls, there wasvirtually no difference in the ability of the members from the two groups to find a



substitute word. This result can be taken as confirmatory evidence that dyslexicsare unimpaired on the semantic side even though they find it more difficult toachieve verbatim accuracy.

The proportion of inclusion errors was less in the case of dyslexics. Thisprovides further support for both the accuracy of semantic processing and thelimitation of attentional/memory resources available to dyslexic participants.Indeed, adding details that were not originally present in the sentence requiresadditional resources which are thought to be less available in dyslexicindividuals (Brown & Loosemore, 1994).

Finally, we found an imbalance in favour of the controls in the relativeproduction of makeshift errors. How is it, then, that the dyslexics in the presentstudy very seldom used this strategy? Using makeshift words can be regarded asa form of improvization}one keeps going with something, even though it notaccurate. As in the case of inclusion errors, such a strategy requires cognitiveresources, which might be less readily available (Brown & Loosemore, 1994).Indeed, as in the case of inclusion errors, it is less effort to omit words than toimprovise makeshift words. We speculate that where control participants usedmakeshift words, dyslexics simply tended to leave them out, thereby producingomission errors. It is possible, too, that dyslexic participants tended to miss outon lilt or rhythm of spoken sentences. There is evidence that some dyslexicmusicians have a relatively poor sense of rhythm (Ganschow, Lloyd Jones, &Miles, 1994; Miles, & Westcombe, 2001). A good perception of sentence rhythmwould have encouraged the controls to use makeshift words (as they would havebeen aware that ‘something’ was missing there in their production) whereasdyslexic participants weak on rhythm might have neglected the missing elementaltogether.

The Relevance of the Concept of IQ

For reasons pointed out in the ‘Participants, apparatus and method’section, precise comparisons between the present participants and those onwhom the Terman and Merrill items were standardized are illegitimate.Nevertheless the fact that some dyslexic adults of university level wereunable to accurately memorize and repeat items deemed suitable for 8- and11-year-olds is certainly an interesting observation in itself. The originalTerman and Merrill test was devised as a measure of intelligence andwas considered to contribute to an individual’s overall IQ figure. The presentfindings add weight to the claim (Miles, 1996) that assigning a global IQ figure tosomeone with dyslexia is hazardous, to say the least: a dyslexic with a poormemory for sentences would be found to have a lower IQ than a non-dyslexicwhose sentence memory was unimpaired}and this conclusion would bemisleading.

Methodological Limitations

Semantic satiation}the quick decay of meaningfulness with repetition}mayhave played a part in our study (for investigations of this phenomenon see, forinstance, Kounios, Kotz, & Holcomb, 2000; Black, 2001). Constant repetition of the



same words may have caused some of the participants to become confused overthe actual meaning of what was being repeated. Research into semantic satiationhas shown that the effect begins to occur after about five or six repetitions, anumber never reached by any of the control participants for any of the sentences.We can speculate, therefore, that upon reaching eight or 10 repetitions, dyslexicparticipants may have reached the peak of the semantic satiation effect. Thiscould explain why they would then attain scores of 15 repetitions or more onsome occasions but not on others, where satiation did not occur. In fact, shouldthis hypothesis be confirmed in the future, it would provide even more supportfor the idea of gist accuracy in dyslexic participants because the meaningfulnessof the sentence appears to have a critical effect on the number of repetitionsneeded. In other words, by the time the sentence means nothing due to semanticsatiation, verbatim accuracy becomes virtually impossible to achieve becauserepetition cannot rely on semantics any more.

Practical Implications

With regard to the practical implications of our findings in the areas of educationand employment, it is now accepted practice in colleges of higher educationand universities that hand-outs of lecture material should always be madeavailable to students. The paucity of cognitive resources available to the dyslexicstudent makes note-taking an extra effort, and dyslexic students might beencouraged to write down only the key words (the ’gist’) as a way ofremembering what is said in a lecture}both writing the word and saying it tothemselves may assist recall.

In the world of employment some employees may be in a position where theyhave to take notes of a discussion or record the minutes of a meeting. Aldridge(2004, Chapter 12) has recorded the difficulties in this area which sheexperienced, as a dyslexic: ‘I find it difficult to be selective about what is beingdiscussed’ (p. 118). The use of an audio recording device and the introduction ofpauses, for instance, will help improve the quality of note taking and the level ofverbatim accuracy in writing the minutes of meeting.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Dyslexic individuals showed the same overall inaccuracy and the same signs ofinattention to detail as have been found in their reading. We note, however, thatintra- and inter-individual performance is considerably variable: some indivi-duals perform as well as controls, while others find the task very difficult and itseems impossible to predict the performance of most dyslexic participants fromone level of difficulty to the next. Overall, our results provide further support forthe view that dyslexics are impaired at the phonological level but are unimpairedwhen they have to ‘process for meaning’. This apparent dissociation betweenverbatim accuracy and gist recall in repetition lends support to the view of adeficit in those cognitive resources which enable dyslexic individuals to payattention to detail.



APPENDIX

Note: Where the participant made a mistake the correct wording is printed inparentheses.

PARTICIPANT D1

Sentence 1. Number of repetitions needed}1.Repetition 1. Billy has (made) built a beautiful boat out of (wood with) his

sharp knife.

Sentence 2. Number of repetitions needed}10.Repetition 1. Yesterday we went for a ride in our car (along the road that)

which crosses the bridge. . . which we crossed the bridge.Repetition 2. Yesterday we went for a ride in our car (along the) on a road (that)

which crosses the bridge.Repetition 3. Yesterday we went for a ride in our car (along) on the road (that)

which crosses the bridge.Repetition 4. Yesterday we went for a ride in our car along the road (that)

which crosses the bridge.Repetition 5. As above.Repetition 6. Yesterday we went for a ride in our car (along) across the road

(that) which crosses the bridge.Repetition 7. Yesterday we went for a ride in our car along the road (that)

which crosses the bridge.Repetition 8. Yesterday we went for a (ride) drive in our car along the road

(that) which crosses the bridge.Repetition 9. As above.Repetition 10. Yesterday (we went for a ride in our car) in our car we went for a

ride along the road (that) which crosses the bridge.

Sentence 3. Number of repetitions needed}4.Repetition 1. The red-headed woodpeckers made (a terrible) an awful

fuss (as they tried to drive the young away from the nest) driving the youngaway.

Repetition 2. The red-headed woodpeckers made (a terrible) an awful fuss asthey tried to drive the young away from (the) their nest.

Repetition 3. The red-headed woodpeckers made a terrible fuss (as they tried)in trying to drive the young away from the nest.

Repetition 4. The red-headed woodpeckers made a terrible fuss as they tried to(drive) force the young (away) from the nest.

Sentence 4. Number of repetitions needed}6.Repetition 1. At the end of the week the (newspaper) newspapers (published)

made a (complete account) big report of the (experiences of the great explorer)explorer’s experiences.

Repetition 2. At the end of the week the (newspaper) newspapers published acomplete (account) story of the (experiences of the great explorer) explorer’sexperiences.

Repetition 3. At the end of the week the newspaper published acomplete (account) story of the (experiences of the great explorer) explorer’sexperiences.



Repetition 4. At the end of the week the newspaper published a completeaccount of the (experiences of the great explorer) explorer’s experiences.

Repetitions 5 and 6. As above.

PARTICIPANT D2

Sentence 1. Number of repetitions needed}0.

Sentence 2. Number of repetitions needed}4.Repetition 1. Yesterday we went for a ride in our car (along) across the road

(that crosses) and over the bridge.Repetition 2. Yesterday we went for a ride in our car along the road (that)

which crosses the bridge.Repetitions 3 and 4. As above.

Sentence 3. Number of repetitions needed}3.Repetition 1. The red-headed (woodpeckers) woodpecker has made a terrible

fuss as (they tried) it tries to drive the young away from the nest.Repetition 2. The red-headed woodpeckers made a (terrible) fuss as they tried

to drive the young away from the nest.Repetition 3. As above.

Sentence 4. Number of repetitions needed}5.Repetition 1. At the end of the week the (newspaper) newspapers published (a

complete) an account of the (experiences of the) great explorers.Repetition 2. At the end of the week the newspaper published a complete

account. ‘did not continue’.Repetition 3. At the end of the week the (newspaper) newspapers published a

complete account of the experiences of the great explorer.Repetition 4. As above.Repetition 5. At the end of the week the newspaper has published (published,

not ‘has published’) a complete account of the experiences of the great explorer.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors are grateful to Professor Virginia Muller-Gathercole for assistancewith the classification of the errors and to Chris Whitaker, Dave Lane (of XavierSoftware) and Patrick Miles for help with the statistical analysis.

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Verbatim and gist recall of sentences by dyslexic and non-dyslexic adults