One of the more compelling reasons to view reading deficiency as the
deri vati ve of a language deficiency is that success at learning to read is
associated with the adequacy of certain linguistic short-term memory skills.
In our work at Haskins Laboratories, my colleagues and I have found clear
indications of this association in a variety of different studies of good and
poor beginning readers. For the moment, however, let me put aside a
discussion of those studies in order to consider first the short-term storage
requirements of normal language processing, and to summarize some recent
findings as to how these requirements are met by the mature language user.
These considerations pertain to both written and spoken language and provide a