Poetry and Syllable-Stress Identification as the Means for Understanding Dyslexia and Reading-Related Difficulties

What is it about?

Children and adults with dyslexia struggle to read, and their reading deficit is typically thought to arise from difficulties with understanding and using sounds, as well as matching sounds to letters (but no problems with hearing sounds). Most dyslexia research looks at the link between sounds and letters, but our study looked at a different aspect of spoken language called "prosody". Prosody refers to the stress patterns that change across syllables, for example, the difference between the noun and verb forms of the word "record" (compare REC.ord and re.CORD). In our study, college students with and without dyslexia were asked to circle stressed syllables in poems and nursery rhymes. We were surprised to find that all of our participants struggled with the task, even those with no history of dyslexia, although stronger readings skills were correlated with better recognition of stressed syllables (see infographic).

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Photo by Álvaro Serrano on Unsplash

Photo by Álvaro Serrano on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Other studies suggest that patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables, or prosody, is difficult for people with dyslexia to hear. Our study suggests that conscious recognition of prosody is difficult for many people, not just for people with dyslexia, but also adults with typical language and literacy development. Given that prosody is central to spoken language, our findings suggest that many people would benefit from educational interventions that focus on prosody.

Perspectives