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Abstract
Phonological and visual theories propose different primary deficits as part of the
explanation for dyslexia. Both theories were put to test in a sample of Spanish dyslexic
readers. Twenty-one dyslexic and 22 typically-developing children matched on chronological
age were administered phonological discrimination and awareness tasks and coherent
motion perception tasks. No differences were found between groups on the coherent
motion tasks, whereas dyslexic readers were impaired relative to controls on phonological
discrimination tasks. Gender differences followed the opposite pattern, with no differences
on phonological tasks, and dyslexic girls performing significantly worse than dyslexic
boys in coherent motion perception. These results point to the importance of phonological
deficits related to speech perception in Spanish, and to possible gender differences
in the neurobiological bases for dyslexia.