Image and Perceptual Representation of Words in Learning Disabled and Normal Children

Results of the present study indicated that learning disabled and normal children (x age = 111.4 months) process letters in words in either perceptual or imaginal modes for the attribute letter height. A large processing time effect was noted for mode of representation with perceptual representations of letters processed more rapidly than imaginal representations. There was also a subject-type-by-processing mode interaction. The results indicate that LD and normal children do not differ in perceptual processing time; however, LD children have a smaller image capacity than normals. Correlational results also suggest that the imaginal mode is more independent of other modes for normals than for LDs.