Dyslexia/dysgraphia and foreign-language learning: analysis of written discourse (an example from Croatia)

Dyslexia/dysgraphia and foreign-language learning: analysis of written discourse (an example from Croatia)

Kaldonek, Agnieszka

Dyslexia is a learning disability that can significantly affect both the learning process of a foreign language and competences in a foreign language. Although dyslexia is highly individualized, dyslexic people usually face problems with sound differentiation, pronunciation and visual discrimination, since they lack phonological perception. This in turn affects their reading and writing skills. Additionally, dyslexia is characterized by non-linguistic symptoms such as memory deficit, concentration dysfunction, spatial disorientation, information processing and organization, as well as difficulties relating to perceptual abilities, rapid naming, sequencing, and the automaticity of basic skills (European Dyslexia Association). The aim of this paper is to present the outcomes of research conducted on dyslexic/dysgraphic learners of English (the focus group) and non-dyslexic learners of English (the control group), both of whose mother tongue is Croatian. The research is based on a comparative analysis of written discourse. The objective of the research was twofold: to identify differences between the groups of the participants and to check whether dyslexia affects competences in a foreign language in the same way as the native language of a learner. The outcomes of the research are in line with the current theories on the issue, but also reveal some interesting aspects about the effect of dyslexia on learning foreign languages.

Conference or Workshop Item
PeerReviewed

2011-05

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