Attentional capabilities of reading-impaired children during dichotic presentation of phonetic and complex nonphonetic sounds.

Reading-impaired boys, who were deficient in nonverbal auditory processing skills, were tested on their ability to identify a single speech sound (CV) when presented in dichotic competition with a nontarget CV or complex nonspeech sound (bleat). Sixteen reading-impaired boys aged 9 to 14 and 16 age-matched controls were presented with 30 CV-CV pairs and 30 CV-Bleat pairs. No difference was found between the two groups in their ability to identify the target CV, regardless of whether the competing stimulus was phonetic or nonphonetic. It was concluded that reading-impaired children of the type studied here are characterized more by an attentional capacity limitation than by an inability to focus attention or by a specific inability to process phonetic information.