What is a characteristic of surface dyslexia as a subtype?

Surface dyslexia is characterized by a significant difficulty with word recognition, particularly with irregular words that do not conform to typical phonetic rules. Individuals with this subtype struggle to recognize words by sight and often rely heavily on phonetic decoding. This reliance can lead to errors when encountering words that do not follow regular spelling-to-sound correspondence, making it a challenge to read fluently.

In contrast, individuals with strong phonological skills typically demonstrate better performance in decoding and reading fluency, which is not consistent with surface dyslexia. While excellent reading comprehension and high performance in advanced literacy tasks are often associated with proficient readers, those with surface dyslexia usually find these areas more challenging due to their underlying difficulties in word recognition. Thus, the hallmark characteristic of surface dyslexia is the difficulty with word recognition, making this response the most precise option.