Reliability and Validity of

the Adult Reading History

Questionnaire
Dianne L. Lefly and Bruce F. Pennington

The reliability and validity of a revised version of Finucci’s (1982) Reading History Questionnaire was examined in two adult samples.
One sample included 84 adults from an ongoing study of familial dyslexia, and a second sample was composed of parents of 107 chil-
dren from a longitudinal study of reading development. Internal consistency was demonstrated by Cronbach’s alphas of .94 and .92 in
the two samples. Test-retest reliability was demonstrated by significant correlations (.87 and .84 in the two samples) over several years
between an earlier and revised form of the questionnaire. Validity was demonstrated via (a) correlations between the questionnaire score
and reading measures (rs .57-.70), (b) the results of a discriminant function analysis that used questionnaire scores to predict reading
=

disability diagnosis, and (c) the finding that the questionnaire had substantial incremental validity in predicting reading skill in a hier-
archical regression analysis that first entered IQ and SES. These results indicated that the questionnaire is both reliable and valid.

ne of the many factors that can lems. In 1905, Thomas noted that read- Scarborough (1989) reported an ex-
~ place a child at risk for reading ing disability, or dyslexia, tended to tensivelongitudinal study of 78 pre-
disabilities family history
is a &dquo;run in families&dquo; (p. 380). This observa- school children. She was interested in
of reading problems (Snow, Burns, & tion has been repeatedly confirmed what preschool differences might be
Griffin, 1998). Snow et al. identified (see Hallgren, 1950, for a review), and observed between children who later
three types of risk factors: the degree of familial risk has been became dyslexic and those who did
quantified. Across three studies by not. Because reading disability (RD)
1. Child-based risk factors, including Gilger, Pennington, and DeFries (1991), tends to run in families, she reasoned
severe cognitive deficiencies, lan- the median risk for a child of an af- that it would be important to include
guage and hearing impairments, fected parent was 9 times greater than children at high familial risk as well as
and attention-deficit / hyperactivity the population risk. Such a ratio, called those without such risk. Parents with
disorder; relative risk, quantifies the degree of and without a history of dyslexia were
2. Family-based risk factors, includ- familial risk of a disorder. Furthermore, recruited and tested. Thirty-four of the
ing family history of reading diffi- recent research has shown that this in- study children were from families in
culties, and home literacy environ- creased familial risk is due in part to ge- which a parent or sibling reported a
ments ; and netic influences (Cardon et al., 1994; history of dyslexia and had test re-
3. Neighborhood-, community-, and DeFries, Fulker, LaBuda, 1987; Grig-
& sults consistent with that history. The
school-based risk factors, including orenko et al., 1997). It would appear remaining 44 children in the study
ineffective schools and teaching that accurate information about par- were from families with no reading
methods. ental reading history would be valu- difficulty.
able in predicting a child’s likelihood of Children entered the study when
This article addresses the second type developing dyslexia. In fact, research they were 24 months of age. A variety
of risk factor and describes the reliabil- has shown that a significant portion of of early language and preliteracy tasks
ity and validity of an adult reading his- a child’s later reading outcome can be were administered over the preschool

tory questionnaire used to gather read-
ing history information.
Previous research has consistently
documented the importance of family
history as a risk factor for reading prob-
predicted from his or her parents’ read-
ing history (Elbro, Borstrom, & Peter-
sen, 1998 ; Gallagher, Frith, & Snowling,
in press; Lefly, 1996; Scarborough,
1989).
period. The reading status of the study
children was evaluated after they com-
pleted the second grade. At that time,
54 of the 78 children were normal read-
ers while 24 were
reading well below

their expected levels. Scarborough
(1989) found that the best predictor of
second-grade reading ability was
family risk status: Sixty-eight percent
(n 23) of the children from the high-
=
risk sample were reading significantly
below their expected level, whereas
only 2% (n = 1) of the children from the
normal risk sample were below ex-
pected level, for a relative risk of 17,
which is higher than the median value
of 9 discussed earlier but still within
the range of previous estimates. In
addition, family history for dyslexia
uniquely accounted for between 30%
and 36% of the outcome variance in
reading. Linguistic variables (sound
and letter knowledge and discrete trial
lexical retrieval) accounted for an addi-
tional 7% to 8% of the outcome vari-
ance. In contrast, a broad array of other
variables, including gender, age, SES,
preschool IQ, nonverbal measures,
early education, and exposure to read-
ing and television, did not contribute
significantly to reading outcome. A
combination of family history and
scores on the linguistic variables suc-
cessfully predicted 82% of reading out-
comes. This finding documents the im-
portance of family history in the
development of reading disabilities.
In another ongoing, prospective
study of preschool children at risk for
developing dyslexia, Gallagher et al.
(in press) studied preschool children
from 67 high-risk families and 37 low-
risk families. Because the participants
were preschoolers, the impact of fam-
ily risk on the precursors of reading was
assessed. These children were tested
on a variety of speech and language
measures that included more measures
of phonological processing than did
Scarborough’s (1989) study. Gallagher
et al. found differences in knowledge
of nursery rhymes among 3- and 4-
year-old children based on risk status
alone. The results of the Gallagher et al.
study are consistent with Scarbor-
ough’s and extend the results of her
study by including more phonological
processing measures.
Lefly (1996) reported on a longitudi-
nal reading development study in-
volving 107 children. Of those 107 chil-
dren, 58 were from families in which at
least one parent reported a signifi-
cant of reading disability, and
history
49 werefrom families with no history
of reading disability. In that study, the
parents were not tested to determine
whether their history was consistent
with their reading status. Children be-
gan the study when they were 5 years
of age and were tested four times be-
tween kindergarten and the end of sec-
ond grade. The test battery included a
wide array of phonological processing
tasks, reading measures, spelling mea-
sures, and measures of cognitive abil-
ity. Lefly found that consistent statisti-
cally significant differences existed on
phonological processing variables (pho-
neme awareness, phoneme perception,
verbal short-term memory, and lexical
access) based on risk status alone from
the prekindergarten period to the end
of the second grade. Diagnosis of read-
ing disability was made near the end of
the study. Of the original high-risk
sample, 23 (39.7%) of the children were
diagnosed with RD and 35 (60.3%)
were diagnosed without. In the low-
risk sample, 3 (6.1%) were diagnosed
with RD and 46 (93.9%) were diag-
nosed without. Therefore, the relative
risk was 6.5 in that sample. That study
was consistent with the others and
clearly indicated the importance of
family history in the development of
explicit and implicit phonological pro-
cessing skills that are thought to be
precursors to later reading skill.
The most recent prospective study of
preschool children at high and normal
familial risk for reading disability was
conducted by Elbro and his colleagues
in Denmark (1998). In that study, par-
ents were asked about their history of
reading problems, and then they were
tested to verify their status. Forty-nine
high-risk children with at least one
parent with dyslexia and 42 normal-
risk Danish children entered the study
in kindergarten, when they were 6
years old. The children were followed
into second grade, at which time diag-
noses were made. Of the children in
the study, 18 of 49 (36.7%) high-risk
287
and 5 of 42 (11.9%) normal-risk chil-
dren became dyslexic, yielding a rela-
tive risk of 3.1. The children with
dyslexia differed from the children
without dyslexia in letter naming, syl-
lable deletion, initial phoneme dele-
tion, phoneme identification, digit
span, pronunciation accuracy, distinct-
ness of
phonological representations,
and receptive vocabulary. Elbro et al.
reported that kindergarten measures
accurately predicted the reading status
of 84.4% of the sample. Their study ex-
tended the results of the other two
family-risk studies by adding multiple
measures of phonological processing,
and addressed the issue of the quality
of phonological representations with a
measure designed to examine the dis-
tinctness of phonological represen-
tations. This was the first family-risk
study to address the issue of phono-
logical representations with specific
measures. Elbro et al. reported that the
measure of distinctness of phonologi-
cal representations contributed unique
variance beyond phoneme awareness
in prediction of later reading outcome.
These studies provide indirect evi-
dence that adult self-reports of reading
difficulties are reliable and valid. There
is also direct evidence in the literature
that such self-reports by adults are re-
liable and valid (Decker, Volger, & De-
Fries, 1989 ; Finucci, Whitehouse, Isaacs,
& Childs, 1984; Gilger, 1992; Schulte-
Korne, Deimel, & Remschmidt, 1997).
Decker et al. found that parents who
self-reported reading problems scored
significantly worse on an actual read-
ing than parents who did not re-
test
port such problems. Finucci and her
colleagues developed an adult reading
history questionnaire to gather reading
history information for which they re-
ported validity but no reliability data.
They found significant correlations be-
tween the overall score on the ques-
tionnaire and a reading test in two
groups: a family group (n 154) made
=
up of relatives of children who had
been diagnosed with dyslexia, and a
control group (n =
90) of individuals
whose socioeconomic status was simi-
lar to that of the family group. These
288
correlations were -.43 and -.25, respec-
tively (both ps < .01 ). Hence, the poorer
readers had higher self-report scores
than the better readers in both groups.
Recently, Schulte-K6rne et al. (1997)
used Finucci’s (1982) questionnaire in a
study to determine whether it would
be advisable to substitute information
from a reading history questionnaire in
place of actual test data for adults.
They used two types of discriminant
analysis-linear discriminant analysis
and Correlation and Regression Trees
(CART; Breiman, Friedman, Olshen, &
Stone, 1984) analysis-to assess the
consistency of classification rates be-
tween actual psychometric test data
and the questionnaire. Overall, 71% of
the participants with RD and 98% of
those without were correctly classified
by the linear discriminant function
analysis, and 87% of the participants
with RD and 91% of those without
were correctly classified by the CART
analysis. Schulte-K6rne et al. con-
cluded that, although it would not be
good practice to substitute the ques-
tionnaire data for psychometric test
data for diagnostic purposes, the con-
cordance rate between objective test
measures and subjective self-report
data was very high.
Unlike these studies of concurrent
validity, Gilger’s (1992) study com-
pared adult self-report to actual read-
ing test scores obtained in childhood.
Even with this time gap, he found
moderate correlations (r s .32-.68) be-
=
tween a retrospective adult self-report
survey and childhood test scores in a
large sample of participants.
Hence, previous research has shown
thatparental reading history seems to
be an important factor in predicting
reading outcome for children, and that
adult self-report information can be
considered valid and reliable. Thus, a
reliable and valid instrument for gath-
ering reading history would be very
useful.
To this end, we modified the original
Finucci (1982) questionnaire by adding
more items derived from our clinical
and research experience with adults
with dyslexia. For instance, a question
about learning letter names was added
because research has shown that this is
a specific area of difficulty for these in-
dividuals. Another question directly
addressed difficulties in learning to spell
in elementary school. Another new
question asked about current reading
speed in comparison to others of the
same age and education level. We have
also observed that individuals with
dyslexia tend to put forth more effort
to achieve the same result as their
peers do, and have difficulty remem-
bering complex instructions and direc-
tions. Consequently, items were added
to the original Finucci questionnaire
that addressed these issues.
The original reading history ques-
tionnaire (RHQ) was designed in a
forced choice format; that is, the re-
spondent checked off a prescribed re-
sponse to a series of questions, such as
&dquo;Did you have trouble learning to read
in elementary school?&dquo; (Yes, No, Don’t
remember) and &dquo;Did you ever require
tutoring or remedial reading class dur-
ing your education?&dquo; (No, Little, Mod-
erate, Great deal, Do not know). We felt
that this format was not sensitive
enough to the range of individual differ-
ences in adult reporters. We changed
the format to a Likert scale format in
which the respondent could indicate
the degree of difficulty she or he had
with a particular area important to
reading. All responses were on the
same scale and allowed for ratings
along a continuum from 0 to 4 (e.g., a
person who had no difficulty learning
to read might respond with a 0 to a
question about difficulty when learn-
ing to read; an individual who had ex-
treme difficulty could respond with
a 4). This type of format also allows
some control for socially appropriate
responding. Some respondents may be
hesitant to say they had any difficulty
learning to read or spell. These indi-
viduals might answer &dquo;No&dquo; to such a
question in a forced-choice format but
would be less hesitant to indicate some
level of difficulty on a Likert scale.
We felt it was important to evaluate
the reliability and validity of the ques-
tionnaire because we made changes to
the original, and because Finucci’s
(1982) study provided no information
about reliability. The results of our re-
liability and validity studies are re-
ported next.
Method
’
’
Participants ,
Two independent samples used
were
in this study. One sample was made up
of adults with and without dyslexia
participating in a separate ongoing
study of familial dyslexia (Pennington
et al., 1986; Smith, Kimberling, Pen-
nington, & Lubs, 1983). A second sam-
ple was made up of parents of children
participating in the longitudinal study
of reading development (Lefly, 1996)
discussed earlier.
These two samples were ascertained
in different ways. The familial sam-
ple was a subsample from a large
sample of families selected for a three-
generation history of reading disability
who have been participants in our
ongoing research on the genetics of
dyslexia. The total familial sample con-
sists of 359 individuals in 19 extended
families. Of the 359 individuals in the
original sample, a subsample of 84
were participants in the present study.
Sixty-nine of the study participants
were adults when the original genetic
study began, and 15 were children who
have since grown to adulthood. Over
the years, we have gathered individ-
ual and family histories and IQ and
achievement test data from the mem-
bers of the family sample. In one of
our mailings, we sent out our revised
adult reading history questionnaire
(ARHQ). The 84 individuals who com-
pleted and returned the revised ques-
tionnaire constitute the familial sample
in the reliability and validity studies
reported in this article. Of those, 53
family members who completed the
new questionnaire had filled out a
pre-
vious version of the questionnaire an
average of 9.7 years ago. The longi-
tudinal sample was made up of par-
ents of young children who completed
a 3-year longitudinal study of reading
 289

development (N =107). All parents of diagnosed as &dquo;not reading disabled&dquo; Diagnostic Methods in the
children who participated in the study (NRD) had negative reading histories Family Sample ..

were asked to fill out an adult reading
history questionnaire when their chil-
dren began the longitudinal study. One
of the variables of interest in the longi-
tudinal
study was parental reading
history, which was used to select fami-
lies with a parent with reading prob-
lems (the high-risk group) and without
(the low-risk group). Three years later,
at the end of the longitudinal study, we
asked the parents to fill out another
copy of the adult reading history ques-
tionnaire.
The familial sample was used for
both reliability and validity analyses.
The longitudinal sample was used
only for reliability analyses, as we did
not testthe parents in the longitudinal
sample. Because the two samples were
ascertained in different ways, they pro-
vide a good test of how robust the reli-
ability estimates are.
and negative test results. The 15 indi-
viduals who were children when they
were originally diagnosed were not in-
cluded in the validity sample. This re-
duced the sample included in the
study from 77 to 62.
In the
longitudinal sample, we had
two completed ARHQs from 54 fathers
and 60 mothers in the longitudinal
sample. As explained earlier, families
were classified as low or high risk
based on parental reading history. Ta-
ble 2 reveals no significant risk group
differences for age or
were, of course, differences for
tial RHQ score, as this was used to as-
sign risk status. What is of interest here
is that very similar group scores were
obtained on the second RHQ, suggest-
ing that there is longitudinal stability
for this measure.
Unlike the diagnosis in Table 1, for the
current study each member of the
adult family sample was diagnosed as
RD or NRD based on test results alone.
Previous history of reading difficulties
was not used as part of the diagnostic
criteria for this study. In earlier studies
of this and other samples with
dyslexia, we have used two test-based
adult diagnostic criteria to determine
who had RD. These criteria were as fol-
lows :
SES, but there
the ini- 1. A reading quotient (RQ)-a score
that compares observed reading
(Gray Oral Reading Test; Wieder-
holt & Bryant, 1984) and spelling
(WRAT Spelling; Jastak & Wilkin-
son, 1984) outcome to that pre-
dicted based on an individual’s

TABLE 1
Demographics of the FamilialI
and Longitudinal Samples Diagnostic Information for the Family Sample
In the familial sample, 84 adults re-
turned the ARHQ. Previous IQ and
achievement test results were available
for 77 of those returning the ARHQ.
Seven of the 84 were elderly family
members without previous test results,
so their ARHQ data were not included
in the validity portion of the study. Of
the 77 family members who had been Note. RD NRD
=
reading disability; = no reading disability.
previously tested and diagnosed, 15
were children and 62 were adults when

originally diagnosed. Table 1 presents TABLE 2

the original diagnostic classifications
for these individuals. The original di-
Mean Age, SES, and RHQ Scores for Longitudinal Sample
agnostic scheme incorporated both
reading history and test results. People
who were originally classified as RD
reported a positive history of RD and
had positive test results. &dquo;Compen-
sated dyslexics&dquo; were those who re-
ported a history of reading difficulty
but whose test results were not diag-
nostic of RD. Persons classified as
&dquo;questionable&dquo; were those who re-
ported negative reading histories but
whose test results were diagnostic of Note. SES = socioeconomic status; RHQ =
reading history questionnaire.
RD. Individuals who were originally ***p < .001.
290

overall ability (Finucci et al., 1984). Status (Hollingshead, 1975). The score in age, age2 (age at revised ARHQ), or
An RQ less than .80 is considered on this index is based the educa-
on IQ. As expected, significant differences
indicative of reading difficulty. tional and occupational levels of the were found between participants with

The RQ has been described in de- head of household for each family. The and without RD in years of education,
tail in
previous publications (Pen- Index provides for eight educational Hollingshead Index of Social Status,
nington, Lefly, Van Orden, Book- categories (from fewer than 8 years of RQ, and Discrim, and on all achieve-
man, & Smith, 1987; Pennington education to graduate and profes- ment measures.
et al., 1986); sional school) and seven occupational I! {’~ .
2. An age-discrepancy score categories (from professional and
(Discrim)-this is an age-
score upper management to unskilled work-
TABLE 3
adjusted discriminant function ers). The scores on the index can range
score. It is based on the Peabody from 11 to 77. Lower scores reflect The Adult Family Sample by Diagnosis
and Gender
Individual Achievement Test more education and higher-ranked oc-

(American Guidance Service 1970) cupations, while higher scores reflect

Reading Recognition, Reading less education and lower level occu-
Comprehension, and Spelling sub- pations. Although the Hollingshead
test scores, and was developed to scores for the two groups were signifi-

discriminate between school-aged cantly different from one another, both

children with and without school groups were in the range considered
reports of reading problems middle class. An examination of Ta- Note. RD =
reading disability; NRD = no reading
(Vogler & DeFries, 1983). ble 4 reveals no significant differences disability.
~’~ ,

These scores were significantly cor-

related with one another (r .77) in the
=

adult sample. The RQ is an IQ discrep- TABLE 4

ancy method of determining reading Descriptive Statistics and Mean Test Scores for Adult Family Sample
disability, whereas the Discrim is an
age-based discrepancy score not based
on IQ. It identifies those who are

having difficulty reading regardless of

IQ. In this study, a person was classi-
fied as RD if he or she met either IQ-
discrepant or age-discrepant criteria.
The agreement between the two types
of diagnostic criteria was 90% in the
adult sample. The IQ-discrepant cri-
terion identified four individuals as
having RD that the age-discrepant cri-
terion identified as NRD, and the age-
discrepant criterion identified two in-
dividuals as having RD that the
IQ-discrepant criteria identified as
NRD. Table 3 provides the details of
the family sample by diagnosis and
gender.
Table 4 presents demographic, IQ,
and achievement data scores for the
family sample adults in the validity
study. Two age variables are included
in the table: age at original question-
naire completion and age at second
questionnaire completion. Information
regarding the socioeconomic status of Note. RD reading disability; NRD no reading disability; SES socioeconomic status.
= = =

participant families was gathered aage at revised ARHQ.

using the Hollingshead Index of Social *p < .05. ***p < .001..

Scoring the ARHQ
Scores onthe ARHQ are computed by
dividing total number of points ob-
the
tained by an individual by the total
number of points possible on the ques-
tionnaire. Each item is in a Likert for-
mat, with scores ranging from 0 to 4.
The scale was constructed so that
lower scores indicate less difficulty.
The first 23 questionnaire items are used
in the calculation of the score. There
are 92 possible points possible for these
23 items.
Originally, 25 questions were related
to an individual’s reading history;
however, 2 items had too many miss-
ing data points to be useful and were
eliminated. One of these asked about
difficulty learning foreign languages,
and the other asked about the fre-
quency with which the individual read
to his or her children or grandchildren.
Both of these questions are clinically
relevant, but many people left these
two questions unanswered, or indi-
cated that they did not take foreign lan-
guage classes or did not have children
or grandchildren. A copy of the Adult
is in
Reading History Questionnaire
the Appendix.
Results and Discussion
Reliability
In terms of internal consistency, the
questionnaire was evaluated in both
samples independently, to ensure that
the results were not driven by the
highly selected familial sample. The
Cronbach’s alpha for the 23-item
ARHQ was .94 in the familial sample
and .92 in the longitudinal sample, in-
dicating that the items were highly in-
tercorrelated with one another and that
this result was not sample dependent.
So, the questionnaire clearly demon-
strates internal
consistency.
To evaluate test-retest reliability, we
correlated the scores of the earlier and
later forms of the questionnaire in both
samples. The correlation between the
two questionnaires in the family sam-
ple was .87. Table 5 presents the means
TABLE 5
Means and Standard Deviations of Revised and
Note. RHQ =
reading history questionnaire;
of theoriginal and revised Adult Read-
ing History Questionnaire scores by di-
agnostic group. The means and stan-
dard deviations on both versions of the
questionnaire were very similar, just as
was observed for the longitudinal sam-
ple in Table 2, even though the test-
sample was much
retest interval in that
longer (9.7 years, on average).
In the longitudinal sample, the test-
was 3 years. The corre-
retest interval
lation between the two questionnaires
in the longitudinal sample was .81
(n 59) for mothers and .84 (n 52) for
= =
fathers.
In sum, these results demonstrate
that the ARHQ had similarly high lev-
els of both internal consistency and
test-retest reliability in both samples.
Because of the length of the test-retest
interval, there is also evidence for
siderable longitudinal stability
measure in adults.
Nonetheless, questionnaires can have
items with a high degree of internal
consistency and can show test-retest
reliability without being valid. To as-
sess validity, we correlated the ARHQ
scores with actual measures of read-
earlier from the familial
ing gathered
sample.
Validity
The validity study involved partici-
pants from the family sample, as de-
scribed earlier. The ARHQ was highly
correlated with the test-based diagnos-
tic criteria (RQ: r = .57; Discrim: r = .70)
in the adult validity sample. In con-
trast, no significant correlations existed
between either version of the ARHQ
and age or IQ.
291
Original RHQ in the Family Sample
RD =
reading disability; NRD = no reading disability.
In Gilger’s (1992) study, one of the
most interesting findings was the sig-
nificant correlation between childhood
test results and adult reading history
results. In the present study, we have a
small sample (n 15) of individuals
=
who were diagnosed as RD or NRD in
childhood and completed ARHQs as
adults. The correlations between their
adult ARHQ scores and the diagnostic
criteria that were calculated for them
as children were .75 ( p < .01 ) for the RQ
and .88 ( p < .01) for the Discrim.
These correlations were somewhat
higher than those reported by Gilger
(1992) and Finucci et al. (1984). The rea-
son for these higher correlations is un-
clear. It is possible that the diagnostic
criteria were more sensitive than those
used by the others, or that the longer
con- questionnaire was responsible for the
of this higher correlations. In sum, the corre-
lations between the ARHQ and the di-
agnostic criteria, whether collected in
childhood or in adulthood, support the
validity of the ARHQ.
In addition to the correlational anal-
ysis, two other types of analyses were
performed to address the validity of
the ARHQ: a discriminant function
and a regression analysis. The discrimi-
nant function analyses were performed
to answer two different questions:
1. What score on the ARHQ is the
best cutoff between individuals
with dyslexia and those without?
2. What differences exist between
those diagnosed by IQ discrepancy
criteria and those diagnosed by
age discrepancy criteria on the
ARHQ cutoff score?
292
In the discriminant analysis, the
ARHQ score was used to predict RD
and NRD diagnoses based on test cri-
teria. The results of this analysis re-
vealed that a cutoff score of .40 resulted
in a sensitivity of 81.8%, a specificity of
77.5%, and an overall correct classifica-
tion rate of 79.0% (see Table 6).
As can be seen, only two thirds
(18 / 27) of those classified as RD by the
ARHQ met test criteria for RD. This
overprediction arose in part from the
compensated adults who were diag-
nostically NRD while having higher
scores on the ARHQ, representing a after the effects of SES and IQ had been
history of reading problems. Four of
the nine participants who were diag-
nosed as NRD by tests but classified as
RD by the discriminant analysis were
compensated adults. The remaining
compensated adults had history scores
that were low enough for them to be
classified as NRD according to the dis-
criminant criteria.
It is important for those making use
of this questionnaire to be aware that
there arecompensated adults who re-
port significant reading history but
a and
are not diagnosably RD. Their positive
reading history may place their chil-
dren at risk for RD although they are
not themselves currently RD.
The results of the discriminant
analysis did not vary much as a result
of IQ age discrepancy diag-
versus
noses. Follow-up analyses revealed
that a .40 cutoff resulted in a sensitivity
of 83.3% and a specificity of 76.3% for
adults diagnosed with IQ-discrepant
criteria. A sensitivity of 76.2% and spe-
cificity of 70.0% was found for adults
diagnosed based on the age-discrepant
criterion. The questionnaire and the .40
cutoff appeared to classify a slightly
higher percentage of IQ-discrepant in-
dividuals with dyslexia, but the differ-
ence was quite small.
The third and final validity test in-
volved a hierarchical regression analy-
sis. It was performed to address the
issue of incremental validity. Specifi-
cally, it tested whether the ARHQ
added significant predictive informa-
tion to demographic information such
as SES and IQ. In this sample, the
Hollingshead Index Score was chosen
as the SES measure because it incorpo- reading scores after SES and IQ were
rated both education and occupational accounted for.
information. The Discrim diagnostic The study presented here is consis-
score was chosen as the reading mea- tent with, and extends, previous re-
sure because it is an age-adjusted mea- search in the However, there are
area.
sure of reading skill that does not ad- some limitations to this study. First, the
just for IQ. The Hollingshead score was ARHQ does not require participants to
entered first, followed by IQ and, fi- specify any type of specific cause for
nally, the ARHQ score. The results of parental reading difficulties (e.g., brain
this analysis are found in Table 7. injury, lack of schooling, hearing im-
Together SES, IQ, and ARHQ ex- pairment, etc.). This would be a good
plained 51% of the variance in the follow-up question to add to the ques-
reading scores, more than half of tionnaire. The answer would help dis-
which was accounted for by the ARHQ criminate individuals whose reading
difficulties were based on a specific,
taken into account. These results pro- identifiable etiology, such as head in-
vide evidence of incremental validity jury, from the others.
for the ARHQ. Another limitation to this study is
that the individuals in the study were
primarily middle class, with above-
average IQ scores. Any generalizations
,
Summary should be made to a similar group. In
the future, it would be important to ob-
The reliability of the ARHQ was tain data from a wider
sample to test
demonstrated by its internal consis- whether these findings extend to a
tency in both study samples (family broader population. This limitation
sample: .94, longitudinal sample: .92), means that caution should be exercised
by the high correlations between
two versions the ARHQ (family sam-
ple : .87, longitudinal sample: .84), even TABLE 6
across a long test-retest interval. The Classification Based on
validity of the ARHQ was demon- Discriminant Analysis
strated by the high correlation between
the ARHQ and diagnostic measures
for adults (r s = .57-.70) and by the high
correlations for those study partici-
pants who were originally diagnosed
as children and later completed the
ARHQ as adults (rs = .75-.88). Consis-
tent with these correlations, the ARHQ
performed reasonably well in a dis- Note. 79.0% of original grouped cases correctly
criminant function analysis and ac- classified. RD = reading disabled; NRD = no
counted for considerable variance in reading disability. :
TABLE 7
Regression Summary Model Summary
Note. SES = socioeconomic status; ARHQ = adult reading history questionnaire.

in interpreting the results if the ques-
tionnaire is used in clinical or research
settings where the population is mark-
edly different from the ones used here.
Obviously, not every child who has a
parent with a positive history of read-
ing difficulty will develop reading dif-
ficulty. As stated earlier, the likelihood
of developing RD is considerably
greater in families with a history of
RD, but research shows that at least
roughly half of the children in such
families will not develop RD. On the
other hand, just because a parent does
not report a history of reading diffi-
culty does not mean the child will not
develop RD. Some cases of RD are non-
familial. Moreover, the ARHQ does not
perfectly detect every familial case. Thus,
clinicians and researchers should use
this questionnaire as a screening in-
strument and not as a diagnostic tool.
With these caveats in mind, it appears
that the ARHQ is a reliable and valid
instrument for gathering information
about parental reading history.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Dianne L. Lefly, PhD, is a past research asso-
ciate at the University of Denver and currently
is research manager for assessment in the Den-
ver public schools. Bruce F. Pennington, PhD,
holds the John Evans professorship in psychol-
ogy at the University of Denver and is director
of the Developmental Neuropsychology Center.
He is the recipient of both a Research Scientist
Award and a MERIT award from the National
Institutes of Health. Address: Dianne L. Lefly,
900 Grant St., Denver, CO 80203.
AUTHORS’ NOTE
This research was supported by NIMH grants
No. MH38820 (MERIT Award), MH00419
(Research Scientist Award), an NICHD Learn-
ing Disabilities Research Center Grant
(HD27802), and Mental Retardation Research
Center Grant NICHD (HD04024), as well as
grants from the March of Dimes Foundation
and the Orton Dyslexia Society.
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294

APPENDIX
... Adult Reading History Questionnaire

PLEASE NOTE: This reading history questionnaire applies to you, and not to your children.
Please circle the number of the response that most nearly describes your attitude or experience for each of the following ques-
tions or statements. If you think your response would be between numbers, place an &dquo;X&dquo; where you think it should be.
296

Scoring the RHQ: ....

Scores on the RHQ are calculated by totaling the points an individual scores on the first 23 items (the other 3 questions are for
informational purposes only) on the questionnaire, and dividing by 92. This should yield a percentage score for that person.
Generally, scores greater than .30 are considered to be indicative of a positive history of RD.