Are cognitive skills a prerequisite for learning to read and write?

Abstract

This paper reports a single case study of a severely retarded Italian boy. TA has a full-scale I.Q. of 47, a digit span of 2 items, and gross deficits in many praxic tasks. His spoken language is phonologically and syntactically well formed, although in terms of semantic and thematic structure it is highly impaired. There is comparable disorder of verbal comprehension. Despite this background of cognitive failure, TA has acquired excellent reading and writing skills at the level of print-to-sound and sound-to-print transcoding. We discuss the implications of the data for the modularity hypothesis, the vexed issue of cognitive prerequisites for reading, and the role of “metalinguistic awareness” as a determinant of “reading readiness”.

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