Characterizing Different Types of Developmental Dyslexias in French: The Malabi Screener

Reading is a complex process involving multiple stages whose impairment may cause distinct types of reading deficits. We describe the Malabi, a screener to identify deficits in various orthographic, lexical, and sublexical components in French. Malabi uses stimuli sensitive to different dyslexias, including attentional dyslexia, an impairment in letter-to-word binding leading to letter migrations between words (“bar cat” may be misread as “bat car”), and letter-position dyslexia, leading to letter transposition errors (“destiny” may be misread as “density”). After collecting reading error norms from 138 French middle-school students, we analyzed error types of 16 dyslexic students. We identified three selective cases of attentional dyslexia and one case of letter-position dyslexia. Further tests replicated our interpretation and explored factors modulating letter migration between- and within- words. Our results support prior evidence of multiple developmental dyslexias, including deficits rooted in impaired orthographic rather than phonological processing. Supported for this research was provided by La Fondation Sciences Cognitives, Apprentissages et Handicap, grant number 2007-00000006772. notReviewed other