Glossary

We advise you to know the terms marked by an asterisk. They may be tested and some
should be used in the Peer assessments.

American spelling is usually adopted (see 'Spelling and spelling reform').

Acquired dyslexia: a condition in which a person loses the ability to read and write as a
result of damage to the brain.

Allophonic variation*: variations in vocal output for a phoneme which are not pertinent
to the sense, e.g., the /a/ in /bar/, /kar/ and /far/ are slightly different acoustically due to
co-articulation* with the preceding phoneme, but these differences are not perceived by
the non-dyslexic learner.

Alphabetic principle*: principle linking spoken and written language in languages which
have a written alphabetical system. The units of the written system, the graphemes, by
and large represent spoken sequences corresponding roughly to phonemes.

Assessment: used in this course in the broad sense of observation not the technical
sense of diagnosis.

Co-articulation*: an effect of pronunciation caused as the vocal tract re-positions itself to

articulate spoken sequences of phonemes, resulting in a partial overlapping of these
phonemes because the flow of air expired as we speak is continuous.

Developmental dyslexia*: a neurobiological condition, often inherited, shown by

difficulties in reading, spelling and composition of text, despite a normal or superior level
of intelligence.

Decoding system*: reading system allowing the identification of written sequences by

segmentation into graphemes, ‘transcoding’ each grapheme into its corresponding
phoneme, and concatenation or fusion of the phonemes generated. (The instructors
sometimes use the single word 'decoding' in a broader sense simply to mean 'word
recognition'.)

Direct access system*: system allowing the identification of familiar written words by
activation of their orthographic and phonological representations stored in long-term
memory.
DSM: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Referred to by Vincent in
'Dyspraxia'. You do not need to know about this.

Dyscalculia: a neurobiological condition which affects the capacity to acquire

arithmetical abilities and numeric cognitive skills.

Dysphasia or Specific Language Impairment (SLI): neurobiological condition which

affects the development of oral language. It is frequently accompanied by difficulties in
reading and spelling.

Dyspraxia or impairment of motor coordination: developmental condition which

affects coordination, balance, fine motor skills, language, thought and perception.

GPC: short for grapheme-phoneme correspondences.

Grapheme*: symbol used in written alphabetic systems to represent phonemes. May be

a single letter (e.g., 'p', 't', 'b', etc.) or group of letters (e.g., 'sh', 'ch', 'ight', etc.).

Hyperkinaesthesia or Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD):

neurobiological condition caused by a disturbance of the cerebral ‘higher level’ executive
functions which control behavior and attention.

Ideographic writing system*: writing systems in which the correspondence between

spoken and written language is made at the level of idioms (words or concepts), as for
example in Chinese. Such writing systems are also sometimes referred to as
logographic.

Irregular word*: word containing one or more irregular grapheme-phoneme

correspondences, that is to say one or more graphemes which are not pronounced as in
the majority of words and/or one or more phonemes which are not written as in the
majority of words.

Lexicalization error*: type of error made when reading by offering a real word for a
pseudoword. Shows that the system for direct access is being over-exploited.

Logographic writing system*: see ideographic writing system.

Matthew effect: name given by Keith Stanovich (1986) to the vicious circle by which the
‘the rich get richer and the poor poorer’, leading to a more and more serious divergence
in reading development between those who read well and those who do not.

Metacognition*: self-monitoring of one's processes used to perform, and succeed in, a

task. When reading a text, metacognitive processes involve thinking about the strategies
which are efficient for achieving comprehension.
Morpheme*: minimal unit of signification. A distinction is made between grammatical
morphemes (e.g., '-s' marks the third person of the singular of verbs) and lexical
morphemes (e.g., 'rest' and 'less' in 'restless')

Onset*: phonological unit consisting of the consonant(s) which precede(s) the vowel in a
syllable, e.g., in the word /trap/, the onset is /tr/. The onset is complementary to the rime.

Orthographic*: the way in which the language is written. The orthographic stage in
reading is when the pupil has stored the word in his or her 'orthographic lexicon' and can
access it fast and accurately.

Percentile: one of 99 values dividing a series of data into 100 similar (or nearly similar)
groups, which permits an estimation for the position of an individual in relation to others
in the group sampled for the test. For example, if a learner has a reading performance
corresponding to the percentile 23, this means that 77 % of the learners of the same age
display a higher performance than this learner in the same test.

Phoneme*: the smallest unit of speech in a language capable of altering the meaning of
a word.

Phonemic awareness*: awareness that spoken words can be analysed into phonemes.

Phonological abilities*: processing skills in analysing sequences of speech into

phonological units (syllables, onset/rime units and phonemes), and the ability to
manipulate these units.

Phonological awareness*: awareness that spoken phrases and words can be analyzed
into phonological units smaller than words.

Phonological dyslexia*: A dyslexic subtype where the decoding system appears

deficient, whilst the direct access system remains intact.

Phonological units*: units into which sequences of words can be analysed. The three
principal units are the syllable, onset/rime, and phoneme.

Pseudoword*: sequence of graphemes or phonemes which does not form an actual

word in the language, but can be pronounced or spelled as if it were a word of the
language.

Regular word*: word in which the grapheme-phoneme correspondences are not

ambiguous or, more precisely they correspond exactly and reciprocally, that is to say
each grapheme corresponds systematically to the same phoneme, and the other way
round.
Regularization*: type of mistake in reading or spelling an irregular word as if it is a
regular word. Indicates overexploitation of the decoding system.

Rhyme*: word ending with the same rime as another word, e.g., in a nursery rhyme or a
song. Not to be confused with the rime (see below).

Rime*: phonological unit consisting of the vowel and any possible following consonant of
a syllable, e.g., in the word /trap/, the rime is /ap/. The rime is complementary to the
onset.

Sequencing ability*: ability to memorize, recall and manipulate arbitrary sequences of

items (alphabet, days, months, numbers).

SES: Socio-economic Status

Standard deviation (SD): measure of the spread of a series of results around their
mean.

Standardized test: test applied to a representative group of individuals of a particular

age or age range, from the results of which statistical values for the mean and deviation
can be derived. Allows the prediction of a performance expected of individuals of the
same age(s).

Syllable*: unit of pronunciation forming a word or part of a word, consisting of a vowel

and usually at least one consonant preceding or following it.