INDEPENDENCE OF ABILITIES IN DISABLED READERS1

The relationships among many abilities in disabled readers were investigated. Seventeen tests were given to 35 disabled readers with a mean age of 10.15, a mean IQ of 95.81 and a mean reading grade of 3.12. The tests were intercorrelated and factor analyzed. Four factors emerged including: reading, auditory memory, oral vocabulary and visual memory. The conclusions were: (a) the reading levels of disabled readers were not highly related to the levels of performance on the other three factors; and (b) the latter three factors were not highly associated with each other. The outstanding characteristic of children with reading disability is that they possess some abilities which are well developed and other abilities which are severely deficient. A common strategy used to describe the abilities and disabilities of disabled learners is to administer a large battery of tests and correlate the results from the tests. However, the multitude of correlations which emerge from such studies is often difficult to decipher. In order to summarize and organize the results from the administration of a large test battery, the statistical procedure of factor analysis may be used. Factor analysis isolates the tests which are highly intercorrelated into a single factor which represents one ability. If more than one factor is identified, more than one ability is being tested by the test battery. The number of factors resulting from a factor analysis represents the number of independent (uncorrelated) abilities measured by the tests which were administered. One attempt to conduct a factor analysis of tests given to disabled learners has been reported recently by Sabatino and Hayden (1970). In this study, 185 children with a mean age of 9.6 were given 24 tests and subtests. The children had I.Q.'s higher than 85 and had "one year or more of perceptual deficit in comparison to their verbal mental age equivalent." According to the avithors, the results were that four factors were identified. The first factor was labeled as an auditory perceptual ability. However, this description of the ability is incomplete since the Gilmore reading comprehension and WRAT arithmetic tests loaded on this factor. This factor represents both auditory perception and academic achievement. The other factors 1 The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Mr. Timothy Sheehan and other staff members of the Kennedy Institute in the collection of the data for this study.