Hello,
 
 
 
I am pleased to announce our next guest discussion on the LD  Discussion 
List.  Please distribute the information and  description below to any person 
or groups that may have  an interest in this topic.
 
Thanks very much,
 
Rochelle Kenyon
 
 
Rochelle Kenyon, Ed.D.
National Institute for  Literacy/LINCS Online Facilitator
Learning Disabilities Discussion List &  Communities of Practice
Center for Literacy Studies at the University of  Tennessee
Program Management Collection
_RKenyon721 at aol.com_ (http://RKenyon721@aol.com/)  

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Learning Disabilities Discussion  List
Guest Speaker  Topic
Common Cognitive Deficits in Dyslexic Students –  Implications for 
Differentiated  Instruction
Discussion Date: October 27-29, 2009
Guest Speaker #1: Brant  Hayenga, Educational Diagnostician 
Brant Hayenga is  an educational diagnostician for the Rio Rancho Public S
chools in Rio Rancho,  NM. After graduation from the University of New Mexico 
with degrees in Geology  and Education he was an elementary ESL reading 
teacher on the Navajo reservation  for five years. He then went on to earn his 
M.A. in Special Education (with an  emphasis on educational diagnostics) at 
the University of North Texas. He taught  ESL reading for three more years 
in Texas, primarily to immigrants from Mexico.  For the past six years has 
worked as an educational diagnostician in Texas and  New Mexico. 
Guest Speaker #2: Dr. Mary Loescher,  Clinical/School Psychologist 
Dr. Mary S. Loescher is a clinically licensed and a licensed  school 
psychologist with the Rio Rancho Public Schools.  After graduating  from the 
University of New Mexico she worked as a speech and language  pathologist at the 
Veterans Administration Hospital and the Albuquerque Public  Schools for 15 
years.  She completed a doctoral degree from the Fielding  Institute in 
Santa Barbara, California and has worked  as a clinical psychologist in private 
practice,  as a school psychologist  in rural New Mexico schools and on the 
Navajo reservation before coming to work  for the Rio Rancho Public Schools. 
Tentative  Agenda 
1.           Welcome,  Self-Introductions 
2.     Outline for  Discussion 
3.     Goals for the  Discussion 
a)   To improve understanding of deficits  in cognitive processes other 
than phonological/auditory processing that are  commonly comorbid with dyslexia 
b)   Examine potential modifications to  intervention that accommodates 
these deficits 
c)    Discuss  how the identified cognitive processes are known to decline 
with age, increasing  the likelihood of dyslexia intervention in adults 
older than thirty being  confounded by comorbid deficits. 
4.           Material to be Covered in Discussion  on Day 1 
Common Cognitive  Deficits in Dyslexic Students 
There is now a  broad consensus that human thinking, learning, and memory 
relies on a set of  distinct, but interrelated, cognitive abilities. These 
abilities can be briefly  summarized as: auditory processing (correctly 
processing the sounds of our  language, including phonological awareness), visual 
processing, short-term  memory and working memory (including executive 
attentional skills), long-term  memory (placing information in and retrieving it 
from long-term memory),  acculturation knowledge (knowledge of the language, 
concepts, and information of  our culture), fluid reasoning (problem 
solving and reasoning with unfamiliar  information), processing speed (speed of 
thinking ability on simple visual or  auditory tasks), and quantitative 
knowledge (understanding and applying math  skills and concepts). Strengths and 
weaknesses in these eight cognitive  abilities affect the quality and rate of 
an individual’s learning.   
Phonological  processing is widely accepted as the core cognitive process 
underlying most  dyslexic students’ reading and writing difficulties. Much 
research has been  published about identifying and remediating phonological 
processing deficits.  Many dyslexic students also present with significant 
deficits in other basic  cognitive processes that are distinct from, but 
related to, phonological  processing. It is important to note that dyslexia is a 
heterogeneous disorder  and numerous studies have been conducted to identify 
subtype profiles within the  heterogeneity of the disorder as a whole. In my 
practice as an educational  diagnostician I conduct evaluations designed to 
supply information about  dyslexic students’ individual profiles of basic 
cognitive processes, in order to  recommend appropriate interventions. I 
would like to focus this discussion on  the inter-relationship between 
phonological/auditory processing, verbal working  memory, processing speed, long-term 
retrieval (specifically rapid automatic  naming or RAN), and executive 
attentional skills. Most dyslexic students present  with deficits in one, many, 
or all of these areas. Verbal working memory,  executive attention, and 
processing speed are all known to decline with age  (beginning approximately in 
the thirties), making awareness of these possibly  comorbid deficits even 
more germane to the adult literacy  community. 
Here is one brief  explanation of how deficits in those basic cognitive 
functions inter-relate and  contribute to dyslexia. When reading unknown words, 
slow (non-automatic)  retrieval of letter/sound associations from long-term 
memory negatively affects  working memory. Verbal working  memory is a 
limited capacity, time-dependent cognitive process. If  information (letters, 
sounds, and words) is being supplied to working memory too  slowly (or in a 
degraded form) due to phonological processing deficits and/or  processing 
speed deficits, there is  some chance that the first letters/sounds or words to 
arrive in working memory  have begun to fade by the time the last letters in 
that sequence have  arrived. Information that has fallen apart (been 
partially forgotten) in  working memory is eventually stored in long-term memory, 
and information stored  in a degraded form is harder to recall. Verbal 
working memory is also  highly dependent upon adequate attentional skills. When a 
reader  is attempting to read, and their attention is inappropriately 
diverted by  irrelevant information (including anxiety), the pertinent 
information in working  memory is forgotten. Working memory contains a limited number 
of “slots”, and  individuals with weak attentional  skills fill some of 
their slots with non-pertinent information. The  incorrect or incomplete 
information encoded in their long-term memory slows down  processing and makes 
long-term memory encoding and retrieval (RAN) more difficult. Slow processing 
speed can make it more  difficult to recall even high quality information 
from long-term  memory. 
Marilyn Adams  indicates in her seminal work, Beginning to Read, that the 
development of  a functional sight word vocabulary (words recognized 
instantly on sight without  effortful decoding) is dependent upon building mental 
inter-letter association  networks. Letters commonly seen together begin to 
share neural activation energy  and, after sufficient, accurate practice, the 
sight of the first letter(s) in  the common string of letters will 
automatically activate the other letters.  Dyslexic students don’t perceive the 
adjacent letters quickly enough in sequence  to build this shared activation 
energy (due to phonological processing deficits,  processing speed deficits, 
attentional deficits, RAN deficits, etc.). By the  time the second letter has 
been identified, the activation energy from the first  letter has already 
faded, so no inter-letter association can form. Without the  inter-letter 
associations decoding proceeds letter-by-letter, which is too slow  to be 
maintained in verbal working memory, and greatly slows the growth of a  sight 
vocabulary. Simultaneous processing (figuring out the letter/sound) and  storage 
(remembering the previous letters already identified) significantly  taxes 
the working memories of students with verbal working memory  deficits. 
This lack of  automaticity in word reading then translates up the food 
chain to comprehension.  When decoded words are supplied to verbal working 
memory too slowly, they  begin to be forgotten, and building meaning from 
incomplete information is  difficult. Forgetting in working memory also occurs due 
to weak attentional skills (inhibiting  irrelevant information), and RAN  
deficits, which cause slow retrieval from long-term memory.

Most dyslexic  readers are born with a core deficit in 
phonological/auditory processing, but  some then layer on verbal working memory, attentional, 
RAN, or processing speed  deficits, along with emotional interference as their 
reading failure experiences  accumulate. Appropriate intervention is 
informed by a well-interpreted profile  of strengths and weaknesses in basic 
cognitive processes. With that information  differentiated interventions can be 
designed, implemented, and  monitored. 
5.     Questions for  Subscribers 
a)     Do you have  adult learners who present with similarly differential  
profiles? 
b)     Does your  intervention program have multiple levels of support to 
accommodate learners  with multiple cognitive deficits beyond 
phonological/auditory  processing? 
6.     Invitation to Ask  Questions and Comment 
7.     Sample Case Studies for  Day 2 
a)     Jonathan –  Multiple severe cognitive deficits significantly 
affecting learning and long  term workplace goals 
b)     William –  Fewer cognitive deficits with reduced impact on  learning 
8.     Recommended  Interventions for Jonathan and William that take into 
account different  cognitive profiles for Day 3 
9.     Suggested Readings   
a)     Dehn,  Milton J., (2008). Working memory and  academic learning: 
Assessment and intervention. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and  Sons. 
b)     Horn, John  L., Blankson, N. (2005) Foundations for better 
understanding of cognitive  abilities. In D. Flanagan & P. Harrison (Eds.) 
Contemporary Intellectual Assessment:  Theories, tests, and issues (pp. 41-68). New 
York, NY: Guilford  Press. 
10.      Additional  Resources/Websites 
11.       Wrap  Up

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