Schematic Concept Formation: Psychophysical Analysis of Early Reading Skill

The relation between the perception of class structure and reading skill was studied within the context of a schematic concept-formation task. Computer generation techniques were utilized to construct visual pattern-classification problems with controlled levels of inter-class pattern similarity or class discrimination difficulty. Children with reading problems were less efficient in their ability to assign patterns to classes than were children without reading problems. It was possible to assess reliably individual subjects' reading skill on the basis of their ability to perform the task.