Decoding ability makes waves in reading: Deficient interactions between attention and phonological analysis in developmental dyslexia

► ERPs in dyslexic (DYS) and control (CON) adults recorded in two visual oddball tasks. ► DYS orienting (P3a) to task-relevant nontargets seen in nonverbal but not word task. ► DYS P3a was absent to relevant pseudohomophones, despite detected relevance (P2). ► DYS P3a response in a nonverbal comparison task like in CON. ► Deficient attentional engagement may drive impaired visual word decoding in DYS.