Allophonic Theory of Dyslexia: A Short Overview

Willy Serniclaes (1)

1 LPP - UMR 8242 - Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception

Dyslexia has three discernable sources: a visual deficit in the perception of letters, a phonological deficit in the perception of speech, and an audiovisual deficit that affects the association between letters with speech sounds. The phonological deficit in dyslexia might result from a specific mode of speech perception characterized by the use of allophonic units instead of phonemes. Here I summarize the available evidence in support of the "allophonic theory" of dyslexia. Different studies showed that the dyslexia deficit in the categorical perception of phonemic features (e.g., the place-of-articulation contrast between /b/ and /d/) is due to the enhanced sensitivity to allophonic features (e.g., the difference between two variants of /d/). A recent investigation showed that allophonic perception also gives rise to an enhanced sensitivity to allophonic segments, such as those that take place inside a consonant cluster. The implications of allophonic perception for the acquisition of the written language are discussed.

Mots clés: Dyslexia; Reading; Speech perception; Allophonic theory

Domaines: Neurosciences; Linguistique; Psychologie

Willy Serniclaes. Allophonic Theory of Dyslexia: A Short Overview. JSM Communication Disorders, 2018. ⟨hal-02065653⟩