READING DEVELOPMENT OF HYPERLEXICS WITH ASPERGER SYNDROME

1
READING DEVELOPMENT OF HYPERLEXICS WITH ASPERGER
SYNDROME
FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF SÃO PAULO Department of
Speech and Language Disorders Speech-language
Pathology Research Laboratory Autism Spectrum
Disorder Cnpq Research group Language
Disorders
Renata Cristina Dias da Silva, Phd Jacy
Perissinoto, Full Professor Brasília Maria
Chiari
Contacts rediass_at_ig.com.br, jacyperi_at_terra.com.br
, chiaribradch.otor_at_epm.br
INTRODUCTION
Studies on Hyperlexia present guidelines
relative to damages in social, linguistic and
intellectual developments, which interfere in
reading comprehension, generally found to be
below decoding level (Silberberg Silberberg,
1967, Huttenlocher Huttenlocher, 1973, Richman
Kitchell, 1981, Healy et al, 1982, Nation,
1999, Kennedy, 2003). Among the individuals with
Language development disorders are the cases with
Autism and Asperger Syndrome (Huttenlocher
Huttenlocher, 1973, Siegel, 1984, Burd
Kerbeshian, 1985, Welsh et al, 1987, Tirosh
Canby, 1993, Grigorenko et al, 2002, Martos-Pérez
Ayuda-Pascual, 2003). In these cases, the
reading abilities are described as accurate and
fluent, although the reading comprehension
indexes are generally negative (Snowling Frith,
1986, Rego, 1999, Scheuer et al, 1999, Silva
Perissinoto, 2003).  This study verified the
reading abilities of Hyperlexic individuals with
Asperger Syndrome years after the beginning of
the disorders manifestations, in their abilities
of accurately processing words and non-words,
speed, and text comprehension and to investigate
possible correlations between these abilities and
chronological age, intelligence level and
schooling.
RESULTS
DISCUSSION
Descriptive Statistics for Readings Accuracy,
Speed and Comprehension
According dendrogram, a cluster analysis was
performed (Johnson e Wichern, 1992) considering
the folowing variables Accuracy, Reading Speed
and Reading Comprehension. This analysis detected
four groups composed by the following elements
Group 1 1, 4, 9, 5, 8, 14 e16 (High
Accuracy) Group 2 2,11,3,12,6,15 e 13 ( High
Accuracy, Speed and Reading Comprehension) Group
3 7 (Low Speed and Accuracy, High Reading
Comprehension) Group 4 10 (Low Speed and High
Reading Comprehension). Reading Accuracy When
applying the Bonferroni method, there was a
difference between regular and irregular words
only when non-words were concerned (p0,049), and
the mean number of correct answers was higher in
regular words than in irregular ones. Reading
Speed The number of words read per minute varied
from 37 to 172, with a mean of 106.3 words. From
these results it is possible to suggest that the
speed of reading does not identify these
hyperlexic individuals as a group, since there is
no clear processing pattern. Reading
Comprehension The items retold were the ones
corresponding to the central theme of the story,
and the proportion of retold items was of
approximately 30, showing that most subjects do
not understand the content of the read material.
Inter-relation between Reading Abilities
Reading comprehension and speed showed a positive
correlation to IQ. The same was true with
accuracy if the observations on subject 7 are
disregarded. Many studies comment that
recognition ability is above the one predicted by
IQ scores (Silberberg Silberberg, 1967, Siegel,
1984, Pennington et al, 1987, Welsh et al, 1987,
Tirosh Canby, 1993, Cohen et al, 1997,
Grigorenko et al, 2002, Richman Wood, 2002).
Subjects 7 and 10 had a lower reading speed than
the others, and higher reading comprehension in
relation to the majority of the subjects in the
study. In the Literature, we may find an
association between reading speed and
comprehension (Perfetti, 1992, Alliende et al,
1994, Rubbo et al, 1998, Capellini Cavalheiro,
2000, Navas Santos, 2002, Nepumoceno, 2003).
Diagrams Dispersion and Coeficients of Pearson
(r) Correlation about Reading Speed and
Comprehension (a), Reading Speed and Accuracy (b)
and Reading Comprehension and Accuracy (c)
a) r (-0,30) b) r (0,42)
c) r (0,27)
METHOD
SUBJECTS 16 male individuals, mean age current is
15,4 and the mean age reported by parents of the
appearance of the first signs of Hyperlexia is
3.8 (three years and eight months). All had
verbal Language abilities with multidisciplinary
diagnosis of Pervasive Developmental Disorder of
Asperger Syndrome subtype (DSM-IV TR, 2002). The
caregivers signed a free consent term. All
subjects were referred to Speech Pathology
evaluations at the Communication and Audiology
disorders departments at UNIFESP-EPM and were
assessed by the Weschler Scale (WISC and WAIS) at
their original institution. PROCEDURES Two
individual sessions The procedures were
recorded in sound and image and these recordings
were later analyzed by 02 speech pathologists.
The data was analyzed in both qualitative and
quantitative manners, accompanied by diversified
statistical study. Reading Accuracy Reading out
Test (Capovilla Capovilla, 2000), composed of
high and low frequency words distributed into
regular and irregular words and rules, with two
or three syllables. Reading Speed Oral reading
of the story As aventuras de Afonsinho (The
adventures of Afonsinho) during 5 minutes. The
number of read words was divided by the total
number of minutes, according to Capellini
Cavalheiro (2000).  Reading Comprehension
Out-loud reading of the story O urubu e as
pombas (The vulture and the doves) and
reproduction, analyzed according to the model by
Mandler Johnson (1977), as proposed by Moraes
et al (2001), dividing the story in episodes and
main items. The subjects received 1 point for
each retold item, and 0 for those not retold or
that were substituted.
Dendogram of Reading
Dot-plots of Reading Speed, Reading Comprehension
and Reading Accuracy in each group
Reading Speed Reading
Comprehension Reading Accuracy
Diagrams Dispersion and Coeficients of Pearson
(r) Correlation about Accuracy and Age (a),
Speed and Age(b) and Comprehension and Age (c)
CONCLUSIONS
The general behavior of the subjects regarding
reading competence did not demonstrate a unique
pattern, since the ability in a certain aspect
was not generalized to others. Thus, one subject
may present a good performance in one specific
task but not in other. This fact demonstrates
that the information for each activity (accuracy,
speed and comprehension) is registered in an
independent Way in each level of reading
processing. Only IQ was correlationed with all
skills of Reading. However, Age and Schooling had
not seemed interfere in reading process of this
sample.
(a) r0,09 (b)
r0,07 (c) r -0,1
Diagrams Dispersion and Coeficients of Pearson
(r) Correlation about Speed and IQ (a), Accuracy
and IQ (b) and Comprehension and IQ (c)
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