Ability to Encode Phonological Representations: An Underlying Difficulty of Poor Readers

Numerous phonological deficits are associated with reading disability. As the literature attests, poor readers have been documented to have difficulties on measures of metaphonological awareness and on several other phonological processes, such as verbal short-term memory and rapid naming (e.g., Brady & Shankweiler, 1991; Gough, Ehri, & Treiman, 1992; Wagner & Torgesen, 1987). This chapter entertains the possibility that many of these language weaknesses stem from deficits in a more basic phonological process—ability to encode phonological representations. In the first section, two relevant experimental procedures are discussed: categorical perception, because it fairly directly assesses phonological encoding, and pseudorepetition, because it incorporates many phonological processes, including encoding, and emerges as a powerful correlate of reading ability. Here the evidence linking each of these to individual differences in reading skill are reviewed, and the argument is made that the common demands of speech perception contribute to the difficulties poor readers encounter on both.