Processes Involved in Braille Reading

The purpose of this investigation was to consider whether the input modality and orthographic differences in braille reading produce different word recognition strategies for blind as compared with sighted persons. Blind children, blind adults, and sighted children were compared as to the extent to which they showed a pseudohomophone effect, which is held to reflect phonological coding. While in the sighted individuals there was strong evidence for such an effect, this was not so with the blind persons. The results were interpreted to indicate a differential allocation of attention to levels of word processing between the groups of readers.