Characteristics of cognitive deficits and writing skills of Polish adults with developmental dyslexia.

The present study was aimed at analysing cognitive deficits of dyslexic adults, and examining their written language skills in comparison with their peers. Our results confirm the presence of a certain profile of symptoms in adult dyslexics. We noticed deficits in: phonological (verbal) short-term memory, phonological awareness, rapid automatised naming (speed, self-corrections), visual perception and control, and visual-motor coordination. Moreover, the dyslexic participants, as compared with their nondyslexic peers, produced more word structure errors whilst writing an essay. However, there were no significant differences between the two groups in the length of the essay, the number of linguistic and punctuation errors, the number of adjectives, and stylistic devices.