| Right-left (R-L) discrimination ability and right-field effect were investigated as signs of reading disability in 9, 10, and 11 year-old boys. An exploration of the mature of the relationship between the reading task and these two signs of reading disability centered around two hypothetical positions---the development of cerebral dominance and the establishment of directional reading habits.;Manipulation of the directional requirements for stimulus recognition by presenting horizontal and vertical letter arrangements was designed to investigate the possibility that the right-field effect was a product of the directional viewing tendencies acquired in reading. Although the vertical task totally eliminated the right-field effect, it was concluded that little significance could be attributed to this finding because of the extreme difficulty level of the task.;Some evidence was found to suggest that weak right-field effect may accompany R-L confusion. The total number of R-L errors correlated negatively with the magnitude of the right-field effect.;R-L confusion was found to be as prevalent in the normal readers as in the remedial readers with the exception that remedial readers made more errors on own-body, R-L commands. It was concluded, therefore, that R-L confusion could not be viewed as a general sign of reading disability but that a portion of the remedial reading population showed a retarded pattern of R-L discrimination skills. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).;It was found that boys in the remedial reading group showed a weaker right-field effect than did a group of normal readers matched for age, sex and IQ. Weak right-field effect, therefore, was found to be a sign of reading disability. |
