91²Ö¿â

Doctoral Dissertation Defense
of
Molly F. Schenker

For the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy
Speech Language Pathology

NEURODIVERSITY OF READING AND SPEECH PERCEPTION IN COLLEGE-AGE ADULTS

October 21, 2025
8:30 a.m.
A103 Center for Perfoming Arts
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Neurodiversity of Reading and Speech Perception in College-Age Adults

Dyslexia and hyperlexia are reading differences characterized by differing skills in decoding, or sounding out words. It is unknown whether dyslexia and hyperlexia also exist together along spectra of other underlying skills, like speech perception. Additionally, while dyslexia can be identified adults, few studies have explored hyperlexia in adults and its presence in adulthood is not well-documented. 

This study aimed to determine the extent to which reading differences such as dyslexia and hyperlexia related to speech perception and perceptual learning. According to the Enhanced Perceptual Functioning model and Veridical Mapping, hyperlexic people may have an enhanced ability to detect small details in the sensory environment (e.g., auditory). In contrast, auditory sensory perception is not a strength for dyslexic people and may be a specific area of weakness (e.g., temporal processing of speech). Therefore, hyperlexic people were expected to perform well on a difficult speech perception task compared to dyslexic people. 

College-age participants completed virtual reading assessments and repeated words from noise-vocoded sentences. Contrary to expectations, hyperlexic adults identified through reading assessments did not repeat sentences more accurately than dyslexic or neurotypical participants. However, participants who self-identified as dyslexic, neurotypical, and hyperlexic performed as predicted by models used to frame the study, though differences in speech perception were not significant. These results indicate that enhanced perceptual functioning may not be present in testidentified hyperlexic adults, and that hyperlexic adults may use similar mechanisms as dyslexic and neurotypical people in difficult speech perception tasks. Additional research is needed to explore the validity of self-identification in diverse readers.