The cognitive profile of adult dyslexics and its relation to their reading abilities

The question of which cognitive impairments are primarily associated with dyslexia has been a source of continuous debate. This study examined the cognitive profile of Hebrew-speaking compensated adult dyslexics and investigated whether their cognitive abilities accounted for a unique variance in their reading performance. Sixty-nine young adults with and without dyslexia were administered a battery of tests measuring their reading skills and a number of cognitive abilities. The dyslexics were found to exhibit a generally poor cognitive profile, including their attention, visual working memory, naming, visual perception and speed of processing abilities, with the exception of high executive functions skills. Furthermore, naming speed, visual working memory and attention were significantly associated with decoding and fluency measures and predicted group difference after controlling for phonological skills. The findings point to the contribution of cognitive factors to decoding rate and possibly to the ability of utilizing rapid orthographic processes, thus effecting dyslexics' reading performance.