ABSTRACT
Like other Semitic languages, Arabic is known for its rich morphology and consonantal writing system. In this article, we report the first case of acquired surface dyslexia in an Arabic-speaking patient (HBS). Surface dyslexia is characterised by difficulty reading irregularly spelled words, while performance is better with regular words and nonwords. The purpose of this study was to describe the symptoms of surface dyslexia in Arabic and to investigate how orthographic depth may affect reading in the context of semantic impairment. In HBS, who had Alzheimer's disease, reading was impaired for both words and nonwords. Her reading performance was affected by orthographic ambiguity and by the presence of diacritics depicting short vowels. In particular, she produced mainly vowel errors, suggesting an overreliance on the sublexical route of reading. On the other hand, HBS was able to distinguish long vowels from consonants represented by the same letters, provided there was a real root. This finding can be taken as evidence that HBS could access the word's root to decide whether the vowel letter represents a long vowel or a consonant. The results of this study suggest that the characteristics of surface dyslexia appear to be universal: reading regular words is spared compared to irregular words and non-words. However, the error patterns that HBS showed in reading support a language-specific conceptualisation of the processing components of the lexical and sublexical routes of reading.
ABSTRACT
The Arabic writing system includes ambiguities that create difficulties in spelling. These ambiguities relate mainly to the long vowels, some phoneme-grapheme conversions, lexical particularities, and the connectivity of letters. In this article, the first to specifically explore acquired spelling impairments in an Arabic-speaking individual, we report the case of CHS, who presented with agraphia following a stroke. Initial testing indicated substantial impairment of CHS's spelling abilities in the form of mixed agraphia. The experimental study was specifically designed to explore the influence of the orthographic ambiguity of the Arabic graphemic system on CHS's spelling performance. The results revealed that CHS had substantial difficulties with orthographic ambiguity and tended to omit ambiguous graphemes. Some of the errors she produced suggested reliance on the sublexical route of spelling, while others rather reflected the adoption of the lexical-semantic route. These findings from a case involving a non-Western, non-Indo-European language contribute to discussions of theoretical models of spelling. They show that CHS's pattern of impairment is consistent with the summation hypothesis, according to which the lexical-semantic and the sublexical routes interactively contribute to spelling.
Subject(s)
Agraphia , Stroke , Female , Humans , Language , SemanticsABSTRACT
Arabic orthography is complex, partly as a consequence of variations in orthographic connectivity. In this article, we present the case study of CHS, an Arabic individual with deep dyslexia associated with letter-by-letter reading. In the experimental study, we specifically explored the influence of orthographic connectivity on CHS's word recognition and reading abilities. Our results show that CHS's performance was better preserved for words and non-words made up of connected letters than made up of non-connected letters. CHS demonstrated impairment of visuoperceptual mechanisms, which affected the processing of complex orthographic material. These results provide insight into the cognitive processes associated with reading Arabic.