ABSTRACTThis study investigated the effect of an auditory training programme with backward readers who were also deficient in one or more auditory perceptual subskills. Thirty subjects were randomly assigned to one of three groups. The experimental group received a nine hour taped programme devised by the experimenter and designed to teach the skills of auditory discrimination, memory, analysis and synthesis and auditory‐visual integration. The comparison group listened to stories on tape for the same duration as the experimental group, while the third group served as a control merely being tested at the beginning and at the end of the experiment. It was found that although the training programme significantly improved the performance of the experimental group over the other two groups on a total auditory perceptual test, there was no corresponding improvement in reading, on word recognition or comprehension tests. The particular auditory subskills which appeared amenable to training were auditory discrimination (rhyme) and auditory synthesis (blending and closure