Evidence that IQ scores are irrelevant to the definition and analysis of reading disability.

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Abstract
The purpose of this study was to determine whether reading disabled and non-reading-disabled children with different IQ scores would show distinctive patterns of performance on cognitive tasks. Reading disabled and non-reading-disabled children, 7 to 16 years old, were administered a variety of reading, spelling, arithmetic, memory, and language tasks and were classified into groups on the basis of IQ level. Reading disabled children at any IQ level had significant deficits on all of these tasks and also had significantly lower scores than the non-reading-disabled children. Reading disabled children with higher IQ scores had higher scores on arithmetic tasks, although their scores were still below average. Non-reading-disabled children generally had similar scores at each IQ level, although children with higher IQ scores demonstrated better performance on some tasks. Language and short-term memory processes are deficient in the reading disabled, independent of IQ level. Therefore, IQ scores do not appear to be predictive to the cognitive processes involved in reading, spelling, language, and memory tasks. Detailed analyses of the specific skills and information processing abilities, rather than IQ scores, appear to be more useful for the definition and analysis of reading disability.

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