ABSTRACT
Everyone is aware of the hazards of determining cause and effect from observations that are essentially correlational. This thorny problem has surfaced recently in discussions of the interpretation of research on reading disability. This chapter summarizes the arguments advanced by Bryant and his colleagues against matching on chronological age (CA). It presents the case for the general usefulness of the CA match control group in testing hypotheses about the causes of reading disorder. The chapter outlines some assumptions about the reading process, and shows how CA match comparisons can be used to narrow the range of causal factors. It also considers the possibility, raised by Bryant and his colleagues, that difference between good and poor readers may be caused by differences in reading experience. The chapter considers the uses of intelligence tests and educational achievement tests in selection of appropriately matched groups.
