Mental rotation of letters,pictures, and three-dimensional objects in German dyslexic children |
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| Authors: | Jascha Rüsseler Janka Scholz Kirsten Jordan Claudia Quaiser-Pohl |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Psychology II, Neuropsychology Unit;2. General Psychology Unit;3. Department of Psychology I, Developmental and Educational Psychology Unit , Otto-von-Guericke University , Magdeburg, Germany;4. Department of Medical Psychology , University of G?ttingen , Germany;5. Department of Psychology I, Developmental and Educational Psychology Unit , Otto-von-Guericke University , Magdeburg, Germany |
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| Abstract: | This study examines mental rotation ability in children with developmental dyslexia. Prior investigations have yielded equivocal results that might be due to differences in stimulus material and testing formats employed. Whereas some investigators found dyslexic readers to be impaired in mental rotation, others did not report any performance differences or even superior spatial performance for dyslexia. Here, we report a comparison of mental rotation for letters, three-dimensional figures sensu Shepard and Metzler, and colored pictures of animals or humans in second-grade German dyslexic readers. Findings indicate that dyslexic readers are impaired in mental rotation for all three kinds of stimuli. Effects of general intelligence were controlled. Furthermore, dyslexic children were deficient in other spatial abilities like identifying letters or forms among distracters. These results are discussed with respect to the hypotheses of a developmental dysfunction of the parietal cortex or a subtle anomaly in cerebellar function in dyslexic readers. |
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| Keywords: | developmental dyslexia children mental rotation spatial ability |
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