Processing abilities associated with phonologic and orthographic skills in adult learning disability.

Measures of orthographic and phonologic skills were related to co-normed Woodcock Johnson-Revised (WJ-R) cognitive measures in 138 college age, learning problem adults. Only orthographic deficits were associated with a processing disorder (p<.001). Selective processing abilities were associated with phonologic (p<.001, Delta adj R(2)=.053) and orthographic (p<.001, Delta adj R(2)=.047) skills after removal of variance associated with general intelligence. Analyses found common processing abilities across both phonologic and orthographic skills for WJ-R visual processing (-Gv) and short-term memory processing factors (Gsm) (p<.001). Cluster analysis established a phonologic deficit and a double deficit (phonologic and orthographic) group. Discussion relates results to the differences between adult and child reading decoding deficits, the lack of a selective orthographically impaired subtype of dyslexia, and the evidence of visual processing compensation for reading problems.