Simultaneous and Successive Processing in Children with Reading and Writing Difficulties

Reading is related to the dominant interaction between the simultaneous (top-down) and successive (bottom-up) processes. Simultaneous processing appears to mediate the visual coding whereas successive processing piays a major role in phonological coding. 17 children were identified with reading and writing difficulties on formal assessment. Out of these 17 children 10 children were reading disabled only and 7 children had both reading and writing disability. Their performance on reading and writing tests indicated errors pertaining to deficits in phonological decoding in Hindi and English language, poor reading comprehension, poor working memory and deficits in visuo-spatial analysis. Performance on writing tests in Hindi and English showed deficits in visuo-spatial analysis and temporal processing. In order to explore the cognitive processes involved in reading and writing, cognitive processes of planning. attention simultaneous and successive processing were examined using the Cognitive Assessment System (CAS) (Naglicri and Das. 1997). The performance of each child was evaluated with reference to the norms of CAS. Children with reading disabilih alone were significantly dilferent from children with both reading and writing difficulties on successive processing. These results need further verification. More specific experiments on letter and word recognition and orthographic processing, interaction between linguistic processes, speed of visual analysis perception and working memory involved in reading and writing ability arc required, particularly to understand reading, writing difficulties as pertaining to English and Hindi language.