SEMANTIC AND PHONOLOGICAL VERBAL FLUENCY IN STUDENTS WITH DYSLEXIA

Background:This article aims to assess the linguistic functioning in terms of phonological and semantic verbal fluency in people with dyslexia, when compared to those without dyslexia. Material/Methods:We examined, qualitatively and quantitatively, the preferred performance strategies, depending on specific learning difficulties and the criterion used, of 28 ( 53%) high school students with dyslexia and 25 ( 47%) without, who participated in our study. Results:No intergroup differences in the phonological and semantic verbal fluency in the number of words produced were found; the semantic task turned out to be easier, and was performed faster, than the phonological task, for all participants, regardless of dyslexia. However, in the criterion group the performance in the phonological fluency task was affected by the selected sound. This result suggests that it is especially difficult for Polish students with dyslexia to differentiate between the representation of a sound and a letter. For the semantic fluency, we found that working memory was related to word production in the criterion group, but not in the control group. Since both working and long-term memory deficits have been reported in people with dyslexia, this suggests the inefficient verbal compensatory cognitive abilities used by this group. Word production turned out to be a relative strength of students with dyslexia, as they performed on a level with their non-dyslexic peers, while employing mostly similar strategies. Conclusions:Subtle differences between the strategies employed by students with and without dyslexia in phonological and semantic verbal fluency seemed to be related to the phonological and memory deficits of the participants with dyslexia; yet these did not influence task performance efficiency.