Are syllabification and resyllabification strategies phonotactically directed in French children with dyslexia? A preliminary report

This report presents data from a preliminary phase on whether, and how, consonant sonority (obstruent vs. sonorant) and consonant deletion (coda vs. onset) within intervocalic consonant sequences influenced phonological syllable-based [...]
Purpose: In this study, the authors queried whether French-speaking children with dyslexia were sensitive to consonant sonority and position within syllable boundaries to influence a phonological syllable-based segmentation in silent reading. Method: Participants included 15 French-speaking children with dyslexia, compared with 30 chronological age-matched and reading level-matched controls. Children were tested with an audiovisual recognition task. A target pseudoword (TOLPUDE) was simultaneously presented visually and auditorily and then was compared with a printed test pseudoword that either was identical or differed after the coda deletion (TOPUDE) or the onset deletion (TOLUDE). The intervocalic consonant sequences had either a sonorant coda-sonorant onset (TOR.LADE), sonorant coda-obstruent onset (TOL.PUDE), obstruent coda-sonorant onset (DOT.LIRE), or obstruent coda-obstruent onset (BIC.TADE) sonority profile. Results: All children processed identity better than they processed deletion, especially with the optimal sonorant coda-obstruent onset sonority profile. However, children preserved syllabification (coda deletion; TO.PUDE) rather than resyllabification (onset deletion; TO.LUDE) with intervocalic consonant sequence reductions, especially when sonorant codas were deleted but the optimal intersyllable contact was respected. Conclusions: It was surprising to find that although children with dyslexia generally exhibit phonological and acoustic-phonetic impairments (voicing), they showed sensitivity to the optimal sonority profile and a preference for preserved syllabification. The authors proposed a sonority-modulated explanation to account for phonological syllable-based processing. Educational implications are discussed. Key Words: syllable, sonority, dyslexia, syllabification, resyllabification