Dyslexia and learning a foreign language: A personal experience

Annals of Dyslexia, 2000 by Simon, Charlann S

Following are specific examples of my foreign language difficulties separated into one of three categories: phonological, syntactic, and semantic (similar to what Sparks et al. propose in their Linguistic Coding Differences Hypothesis. While the categorical placements are not "pure," they do serve an organizational function. For example, one could argue that most difficulties are phonological at the core; structural and semantic concepts are lost in "the mush" of the speech stream (Service 1992). Vowels, in particular, are difficult for individuals with language disorders to identify and repeat (Post, Foorman, and Hiscock 1997). Both receptive and expressive phonological coding tasks are challenging for people with dyslexia. For example, Das, Mishra, and Kirby (1994) found that tasks demanding simultaneous use of phonological coding and articulation correctly identified children with dyslexia with up to 80 percent accuracy. For those of us with dyslexia, then, retaining a sequence of sounds in a novel multisyllable word or short phrase, and then repeating the sequence accurately, is nearly impossible. Recently, I have found that my knowledge of French syntax helps me predict linguistic content and increases the probability that I can repeat a phrase consisting of six to eight syllables. To provide the reader with an indication of which examples of difficulties in learning French are particularly unusual, I solicited an evaluation of them from a native French-speaking university professor with twenty-five years of experience in linguistics research and foreign language teaching (Ossipov 1999). I have marked an asterisk next to highly atypical, persisting difficulties even after seven years of motivated study.

PHONOLOGICAL CODING DIFFICULTIES

Phonological coding difficulties have an impact on auditory discrimination of sound elements, auditory blending of and memory for sound elements, understanding the sound/symbol code, spelling, and sustained attention to auditory information. Phonological processing deficits affect phonological, syntactic, and semantic coding. As enumerated in Catts (1989), these deficits include:

* encoding of speech sound information in long-term memory;

* use of phonological codes in working memory;

* retrieval of phonological information from long-term memory;

* production of complex phonological sequences; and

*awareness or sensitivity to the speech sound structure of the language (p. 54).

Manifestations of my continuing difficulties with phonological coding and related cognitive processes include the following:

Oral Language

*A. I cannot remember and consistently apply phonological rules (i.e., "stabilize" sound/ symbol relationships), which interferes with "anchoring" pronunciation of content and structural vocabulary. I tend to approximate rather than hit the target pronunciation, especially with vowels. According to native French instructors, my phonology is significantly less developed than my syntax which might explain why I am frequently asked to repeat what I have said. Specific examples include: