READING DISABILITIES, COMORBID PSYCHOPATHOLOGY, AND THE SPECIFICITY OF NEUROLINGUISTIC DEFICITS

Research on children with learning disabilities, and reading disabilities in particular, indicates a high comorbidity with both internalizing and externalizing disorders. In the first study, a group of children with reading disability (RD, N = 17) was compared with a group of children with RD and co-occurring psychopathology (RD+, N = 17) on a number of neuropsychological measures. Group comparisons did not reveal any significant differences. The second study investigated the performance of subjects with significant reading disability (RD/RD+, N = 16) as compared to subjects with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (N = 18) on a number of neurolinguistic and phonological measures. Group comparisons revealed the RD group to have relative deficits in phonological coding, expressive language, elision, and vocabulary. The results of these studies revealed that regardless of the presence of co-occurring psychopathology, children with RD suffer deficits in neurolinguistic abilities, particularly those relating to phonological processes. These results support the notion that children with reading disabilities suffer primary deficits in language and phonological processes and that these deficits are specific to the presence of reading disabilities even when comorbid psychopathology exists.