114 Chapter 5 Procedure For the purpose of this study, 99 files of Dutch children were collected from a clinic for assessment and intervention for children with learning difficulties. Due to missing data and different instruments a sample of 54 children with Dutch as their first language remained for this study. The children were diagnosed with dyslexia following the protocol by Blomert (2006), which is line with the definition of dyslexia of the International Dyslexia Association (2002). The Dutch protocol for diagnosis of developmental dyslexia (Blomert, 2006) states that teachers have to prove resistance to treatment and weak performances on word reading and spelling during one and a half school year. In the subsequent diagnosis, a phonological deficit needs to be evidenced and other explanations of reading or spelling problems need to be excluded by a certified clinical psychologist. After assessment all children diagnosed with dyslexia received an in-service phonic through spelling intervention in a clinic for assessment and intervention for children with learning difficulties. All children were tested between 2009 and 2013 in two consecutive mornings by clinicians on above mentioned measures. For semantic abilities and verbal working memory, a few raw scores were missing (2-4 per variable). Furthermore, spelling dictation of one child was missing. Two or three weeks after the assessment the phonics through spelling intervention started for 52 children. After the intervention all participants were subjected to the posttest, including pseudoword decoding, word decoding, and spelling measures. Eight children were not tested for pseudoword decoding at posttest. For the current study, data from a control group was included. Data from the control group was gathered at a primary school in the east of the Netherlands. Parents were informed about the purpose of the study by means of a letter and flyer with a link to an online consent form. In the flyer, it has been described we were hoping to get permission to test the verbal learning ability and reading and spelling levels along with some control variables in order to study differences and similarities between children with dyslexia and typically developing children in their abilities and the relation between these abilities. In total, 36 parents gave permission for their child to participate. Children from the control group were tested by graduate students, during two mornings within two weeks. The graduate students received a training by one of the authors. Tests were performed in two blocks (Block A and Block B). The blocks were randomized over the two days. However, the test order within the blocks was fixed. Block A included measures for spelling, verbal learning, word reading, pseudoword reading, rapid automatized naming and verbal consolidation. Block B included the measures for phonological awareness and the five subtests of the WISC-IIINL . Both blocks lasted about 45 minutes and took place in a quiet room within the school of the children. Children were picked up from the classroom for participation. All outcome variables were standardized by comparing them to normbased peers with help of the manual of the tests. The raw scores (total number of words
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