The mnemonic abilities of university students with dyslexia. A survey of the most used vocabulary learning strategies

Abstract

This thesis sets out to analyse the vocabulary learning strategies that university students with dyslexia use in foreign language acquisition to retain new lexical items.

Several researchers (Denckla & Rudel 1976a; Denckla & Rudel 1976b; Johnston, Rugg, Scott, 1987; Swanson, 1994; Hulme & Roodenrys, 1995; Alloway & Gathercole, 2012) focused their attention on working memory and learning disabilities in order to investigate the relationship between mnemonic skills, vocabulary learning and neurodevelopmental disorders. These surveys are of great importance because poor memory skills may result in limiting the progress of university students.

However, there is still much to be investigated with respect to memorization strategies used by dyslexic learners, especially since most of the surveys, regarding vocabulary learning strategies, were carried out on typically-developing students from all over the world that studied English (Shanaoui, 1995; Lawson & Hogben, 1996; Lip, 2009; Ghadessy, 1998), however little reference was made to the Italian context.

In order to achieve an overview with respect to the most used vocabulary learning strategies and the relationship between past experiences and academic results, a questionnaire of 59 questions was administered to a sample of Italian university students with dyslexia. It aimed at investigating three main topics:

1. Which are the most used vocabulary learning strategies by the dyslexic students? 2. Is there a relation between the students’ past school experiences, the choice of the appropriate strategies and their academic results? 3. Which learning strategies can be linked to positive academic results?

A general overview of the results shows that on-line dictionaries are the most referenced learning tools, followed by songs in L2. Furthermore, oral repetition of the word and the transcription of the sounds of the new lexical item with the L1 alphabet are also widespread memorization strategies.

The results also show that positive past experiences, such as the early diagnosis of the learning disability and study experiences abroad are related to good academic results. However, it is not a case that those that have achieved early diagnosis and that that have studied abroad for some time consider their learning strategies really useful. Hence, various influences may affect the choice of the most appropriate vocabulary learning strategies and, as a consequence, the academic results.