Object-naming deficits in developmental dyslexia

This paper reports two experiments which focus on the object naming deficits of dyslexic readers. In Experiment 1, dyslexic and normal readers were asked to name objects depicted by pictures or following their spoken definition. Ten-year-old dyslexics named fewer objects correctly than other children of a similar age, performing only as well as a younger group of 8-year-old normal readers. This was true irrespective of the modality through which they were tested. In terms of naming latency, however, they were similar to comparison groups. In Experiment 2, nine-year-old dyslexic and normal readers performed as well as each other in a receptive vocabulary test in which pictures had to be matched to spoken words. However, once again, on a picture naming test, the dyslexics did less well than controls. We argue that dyslexic children are subject to verbal naming difficulties which cannot be accounted for by generally low levels of vocabulary knowledge. Their problems are attributable not to difficulties in semantic representation but to difficulties with the lexical-phonological representation of spoken words they know. We propose that, in turn, these difficulties are related to their memory and reading problems.     

Derivational morphology and spelling in dyslexia

This exploratory study aimed to evaluate the spelling of derived words by dyslexic adolescents and to verify whether this is associated with lack of vocabulary and/or morphological knowledge. A cross-sectional reading level-design was employed in order to determine differences in spelling, derivational morphology and vocabulary tasks between dyslexic students aged 13+ and age-matched and reading level matched control groups. The study confirmed a profound spelling impairment of dyslexic students in comparison with two control groups but this was not associated with poor vocabulary in relation with their age-peers. In contrast, they exhibited lower levels of morphological knowledge than age-matched controls but equivalent with the reading level controls. These results are interpreted in the light of current developmental models of spelling that support a reciprocal interaction between spelling and metamorphology.     

汉语发展性阅读障碍儿童视觉短时记忆特点研究

本研究采用实验研究的方法,探讨了不同亚类型的汉语发展性阅读障碍儿童在视觉短时记忆上的特点,分别从不同的材料难度和目标刺激呈现时间上对各阅读障碍组与正常组的短时记忆准确率进行对比。结果表明:(1)阅读障碍儿童与正常儿童在视觉短时记忆上存在显著差异,并且随着材料复杂性的提高,阅读障碍儿童的缺陷表现的更明显。(2)目标刺激难度较小时,呈现时间较短(0.5s)时,识字量差的被试,其记忆准确性显著差于识字量不差的被试;呈现时间较长时(1s和2s),叫组被试之间在记忆准确性上不存在显著差异。(3)目标刺激难度较大时,呈现时间短(0.5s),四组被试之间均不存在显著差异;呈现时间为1s时,识字量差的被试,其记忆准确性显著差于识字量不差的被试;当刺激呈现时间增加至2s时,阅读理解能力差的被试,其记忆准确性显著低于阅读理解能力不差的被试。     

Contribution of discourse and morphosyntax skills to reading comprehension in Chinese dyslexic and typically developing children

This study aimed at identifying important skills for reading comprehension in Chinese dyslexic children and their typically developing counterparts matched on age (CA controls) or reading level (RL controls). The children were assessed on Chinese reading comprehension, cognitive, and reading-related skills. Results showed that the dyslexic children performed significantly less well than the CA controls but similarly to RL controls in most measures. Results of multiple regression analyses showed that word-level reading-related skills like oral vocabulary and word semantics were found to be strong predictors of reading comprehension among typically developing junior graders and dyslexic readers of senior grades, whereas morphosyntax, a text-level skill, was most predictive for typically developing senior graders. It was concluded that discourse and morphosyntax skills are particularly important for reading comprehension in the non-inflectional and topic-prominent Chinese system.     

Effects of repeated reading on the length effect in word and pseudoword reading

In this study the effect of repeated reading on the acquisition of orthographic knowledge was examined. Acquisition of orthographic knowledge was assessed by the effect of word length on reading speed. We predicted that the effect of length in a set of words and pseudowords would decrease after the repeated reading of these (pseudo)words. The study involved fourth and fifth grade dyslexic children, in addition to normal readers in second and fourth grade. Words and pseudowords ranged from four to six letters and were read 16 times. A length effect was found in the dyslexic and younger normal readers, but not in the older normal readers. The length effect did not change from pre‐test to post‐test, although a large overall improvement in reading speed was found in all groups. These results suggest that repeated reading did not alter the predominantly sub‐lexical reading procedure of the dyslexic and younger normal readers. Implications for the interpretation of the length effect and the notion of word‐specific orthographic knowledge are discussed.     

Very Early Language Deficits in Dyslexic Children

At 2 1/2 years of age, children who later developed reading disabilities were deficient in the length, syntactic complexity, and pronunciation accuracy of their spoken language, but not in lexical or speech discrimination skills. As 3-year-olds, these children began to show deficits in receptive vocabulary and object-naming abilities, and as 5-year-olds they exhibited weaknesses in object-naming, phonemic awareness, and letter-sound knowledge that have characterized kindergartners who became poor readers in other studies. These late preschool differences were related to subsequent reading status as well as to prior language skills, but early syntactic proficiency nevertheless accounted for some unique variance in grade 2 achievement when differences at age 5 were statistically controlled. The language deficits of dyslexic children were unrelated to maternal reading ability and were not observed in children from dyslexic families who became normal readers. The implications of the results for etiological issues are discussed.     

Dyslexia in a second language?—a dynamic test of reading acquisition may provide a fair answer

Dyslexia is hard to diagnose in a second language. Poor performance on a test of reading may be caused by poor language proficiency in the second language or by limited schooling rather than by poor reading ability per se. This confound was supported in a study of 88 adult second language learners and 65 native language speakers. The incidence of dyslexia in the second language learners varied widely depending on the measure of reading. In order to reduce language and schooling confounds, a dynamic test of acquisition of basic decoding ability was developed. In the dynamic test, participants are taught three novel letters and to synthesise the letter sounds into new words. Results from the study indicated that the dynamic test provided results in accordance with the current IDA definition of dyslexia, while significantly reducing the influence second language vocabulary and amount of schooling. With the dynamic measure, the same cut-off point between dyslexic and non-dyslexic performance appeared valid in both native language speakers and second language learners.     

Reading‐Specific Flexibility Moderates the Relation Between Reading Strategy Use and Reading Comprehension During the Elementary Years

The goal was to test whether cognitive flexibility moderates the relation between reading strategy use and reading comprehension during the elementary years. Seventy‐five second‐ through fifth‐grade students completed a think aloud task and a metacognitive questionnaire to measure reading strategies, two card‐sorting tasks to measure general and reading‐specific cognitive flexibility, and one standardized measure of reading comprehension, as well as measures of oral reading fluency and vocabulary. As expected, oral reading fluency and vocabulary predicted reading comprehension, as did reading‐specific flexibility. Importantly, reading‐specific flexibility had a significant moderating effect, over and above the other effects. Specifically, weak reading‐specific flexibility skills were associated with a negative relation between reading strategy use during think aloud and reading comprehension, suggesting that children with weak flexibility skills are less adept at using reading strategies effectively.     

The issues involved in developing a spelling program for adults with dyslexia

The focus of this paper will be the issues involved in developing a spelling program for an adult with dyslexia. Thus a review of research and identification of the implications of such research will be undertaken. It is appropriate to address spelling because it is poor spelling rather than poor reading which remains a weakness for the dyslexic adult (Singleton, 1991). Spelling is also perceived as being more difficult (Miles 1993). Yet another value in teaching specific spelling skills to dyslexic learners is that some research suggests that spelling training given in conjunction with phonological awareness training facilitates reading development at a faster rate (Ehri, 1989). No attempt will be made to develop specific teaching strategies orto evaluate specific methods for the teaching of dyslexic learners, although reference may be made to either or both of these aspects.     

The Contribution of Visual Sensitivity,Phonological Processing,and Nonverbal IQ to Children's Reading

It has been suggested that the differences observed for dyslexic readers compared to normal readers on tasks measuring visual sensitivity may simply be the result of differences between the two groups in general cognitive ability and/or attentional engagement. One common way to accommodate this proposal is to match normal and dyslexic readers on IQ. However, an explicit test of this suggestion is to take normal and dyslexic readers who differ on IQ—where IQ would be expected to explain reading ability—and determine if visual sensitivity can still account for reading skill, even when IQ is taken into account. In this study we explored the relative contributions of nonverbal IQ, visual sensitivity as measured by sensitivity to the frequency doubling illusion, and phonological and irregular word reading to reading ability. Visual sensitivity explained a significant amount of variance in reading ability, over and above nonverbal IQ, accounting for 6% of the unique variance in reading ability. Moreover, visual sensitivity was related primarily to irregular word reading rather than to nonsense word decoding. This study demonstrates that low-level visual sensitivity plays an intrinsic role in reading aptitude, even when IQ differences between normal and dyslexic readers are contrived to maximize the contribution of IQ to reading skill. These results challenge the suggestion that impaired visual sensitivity may be epiphenomenal to poor reading skills.     

Computerized-Adaptive and Self-Adapted Music Listening Tests: Psychometric Features and Motivational Benefits

In this study, we compared the efficiency, reliability, validity, and motivational benefits of computerized-adaptive and self-adapted music-listening tests (referred to hereafter as CAT and SAT, respectively). Junior high school general music students completed a tonal memory CAT, a tonal memory SAT, standardized music aptitude and achievement tests; and questionnaires assessing test anxiety, demographics, and attitudes about the CAT and SAT. Standardized music test scores and music course grades served as criterion measures in the concurrent validity analysis. Results showed that the SAT elicited more favorable attitudes from examinees and yielded ability estimates that were higher and less correlated with test anxiety than did the CAT. The CAT, however, required fewer items and less administration time to match the reliability and concurrent validity of the SAT and yielded higher levels of reliability and concurrent validity than the SAT when test length was held constant. These results reaffirm important tradeoffs between the two administration procedures observed in prior studies of vocabulary and algebra skills, with the SAT providing greater potential motivational benefits and the CAT providing greater efficiency. Implications and questions for future research are discussed.     

词汇广度和句法知识对二语阅读理解的预测

基于阅读组合模式的理论框架、Nation提出的词汇广度测试构念和结构语言学家对于句法知识的界定,考察词汇广度和句法知识对二语阅读理解测试成绩的预测,以了解此预测是否受二语水平的调节作用。实验结果表明：受试的词汇广度和句法知识都与其阅读理解测试成绩存在线性相关关系;无论对于高水平受试还是低水平受试,句法知识对阅读理解测试成绩的预测能力都大于词汇广度对其的预测。     

The effect of print size on reading speed in dyslexia

This article details a study which predicted that across a wide range of print sizes dyslexic reading would follow the same curve shape as skilled reading, with constant reading rates across large print sizes and a sharp decline in reading rates below a critical print size. It also predicted that dyslexic readers would require larger critical print sizes to attain their maximum reading speeds, following the letter position coding deficit hypothesis. Reading speed was measured across twelve print sizes ranging from Snellen equivalents of 20/12 to 20/200 letter sizes for a group of dyslexic readers in Grades 2 to 4 (aged 7 to 10 years), and for non-dyslexic readers in Grades 1 to 3 (aged 6 to 8 years). The groups were equated for word reading ability. Results confirmed that reading rate-by-print size curves followed the same two-limbed shape for dyslexic and non-dyslexic readers. Dyslexic reading curves showed higher critical print sizes and shallower reading rate-by-print size slopes below the critical print size, consistent with the hypothesis of a letter-position coding deficit. Non-dyslexic reading curves also showed a decrease of critical print size with age. A developmental lag model of dyslexic reading does not account for the results, since the regression of critical print size on maximum reading rate differed between groups.     

Identification of sub-types of students with learning disabilities in reading and its implications for Chinese word recognition and instructional methods in Hong Kong primary schools

This paper consists of three studies. The first study aimed to identify sub-types of students with learning disabilities in reading. Based on the dual-route model of reading, words may be read using either a lexical (words are recognized as wholes) or a sub-lexical (words are recognized through grapheme-phoneme correspondence) procedure. Castles and Coltheart (1993) provided evidence for the existence of these two mechanisms in English reading. They suggested that deficits in one and/or the other mechanism would lead to different patterns of reading disability. Surface dyslexia results from an impairment of the lexical procedure with an intact phonological route to reading. Phonological dyslexia results from a deficit in the grapheme-phoneme transformation mechanism. A higher percentage of surface dyslexia was identified in the present study. The aim of the second study was to analyze reading errors to support the existence of surface and phonological dyslexic patterns in Chinese reading. The results showed that students with surface dyslexic pattern made more phonological errors, whereas students with phonological dyslexic pattern made more semantic errors. These two studies indicate that students with learning disabilities could have different strengths and weaknesses and could have different preferences for recognizing Chinese characters and different responses to instructional methods. The third study was designed to test the effects of different teaching methods and different kinds of Chinese characters on students with learning disabilities. In general, the analytic method was found more effective for students with surface dyslexic pattern and the whole-word method for those with the phonological dyslexic pattern. The findings of this study showed the importance of identifying the strengths of the different sub-types of readers and the need to choose appropriate instructional methods accordingly.     

A developmental perspective on dyslexic subtypes

In this paper we apply a developmental model of reading to the question of dyslexic subtypes. Groups of normal readers (n=40) and dyslexic children (n=50), matched on reading level and IQ, were given a comprehensive test battery measuring level of development of visual, phonological, and orthographic skills. As a group, dyslexics deviated from normal readers of equivalent reading achievement primarily in phonological skills (spelling-to-sound translation and phonemic analysis), although limited differences in knowledge of word-specific spellings were also observed. Dyslexics were superior to the younger normal readers in visual processing of print. Analysis of individual data by reference to the reading level control group revealed three major subgroups: a group with a specific deficit in phonological processing of print (52 percent), a group with deficits in processing both the phonological and orthographic features of printed words (24 percent), and a group with phonological deficits in language (8 percent). The remainder of the sample (16 percent) had specific deficits in visual or orthographic processing of print, in spelling, or did not differ from the control group. The data support the view that most developmental dyslexics have a specific language disorder involving some aspect of phonological processing. However, small subgroups with very different configurations of reading and nonreading difficulties may exist as well. This research was supported by an NICHD grant to the first author (USPHS grant 1 R23 HD20231).     

Is dyslexia a form of specific language impairment? a comparison of dyslexic and language impaired children as adolescents

Two groups of adolescents with a childhood history of language impairment were compared with a group of developmentally dyslexic young people of the same age and nonverbal ability. The study also included two comparison groups of typically developing children, one of the same age as those in the clinical groups, and a younger comparison group of similar reading level to the dyslexic students. Tests of spoken and written language skills revealed that the adolescents with dyslexia were indistinguishable from those with resolved language impairments on spoken language tasks, and both groups performed at age-expected levels. However, both dyslexic readers and those with resolved specific language impairments showed deficits in phonological awareness. On written language tasks, a different pattern of performance was apparent. In reading and spelling, adolescents with dyslexia performed only as well as those with persistent oral language impairments and younger controls. However, their reading comprehension was better. The theoretical and educational implications of these findings are discussed.     

Does EFL Readers' Lexical and Grammatical Knowledge Predict Their Reading Ability? Insights From a Perceptron Artificial Neural Network Study

This study aims to examine the relationship between reading comprehension and lexical and grammatical knowledge among English as a foreign language students by using an Artificial Neural Network (ANN). There were 825 test takers administered both a second-language reading test and a set of psychometrically validated grammar and vocabulary tests. Next, their reading, grammar, and vocabulary abilities were estimated by the Rasch model. A multilayer ANN was used to classify low- and high-ability readers based on their grammar and vocabulary measures. ANN accurately classified approximately 78% of readers with reference to their vocabulary and grammar knowledge. This finding is consistent with the cognitive theories of reading that treat the lexical and grammatical knowledge of learners as a major factor in distinguishing poor from competent readers. The study also confirmed previous research in finding that vocabulary knowledge was associated with reading comprehension more strongly than grammatical knowledge.     

Bannatyne's “genetic dyslexic” subtype: A validation study

Bannatyne's “genetic dyslexic” subtype of reading disability was evaluated using WISC-R data obtained from 140 disabled readers and their matched controls (total N = 280). Although a familial pattern of reading problems was present among the relatives of the disabled readers, it was not unique to the “genetic dyslexic” subtype. However, the predicted Spatial > Conceptual > Sequential pattern of means was found to be reliable and specific to the reading disabled sample.     

A comprehensive evaluation of lexical reading in Italian developmental dyslexics

Italian developmental dyslexic readers show a striking length effect and have been hypothesised to rely mostly on nonlexical reading. Our experiments tested this hypothesis by assessing whether or not the deficit underlying dyslexia is specific to lexical reading. The effects of lexicality, word frequency and length were investigated in the same group of children in four separate experiments. Although dyslexics were slower and less accurate than skilled readers and had large length effects, they showed lexicality and word frequency effects in both reading aloud and lexical decision. In a cross‐experiment comparison, we show that a single global factor explains a large proportion of the difference in reading performance between dyslexic and skilled readers. This factor may indicate a deficit at a prelexical level of analysis. Lexical activation seemed spared in the dyslexic children based on the effects of lexicality and frequency. These findings contrast the hypothesis that Italian dyslexics primarily engage in nonlexical reading.     

Training in phonological strategies improves Chinese dyslexic children’s character reading skills

This study investigated Chinese dyslexic children’s efficiency in employing phonological strategies (i.e. the use of orthography-phonology correspondence rules) in reading and the effectiveness of training phonological strategies in improving Chinese dyslexic children’s reading performance. An Experimental Group of 15 Chinese dyslexic children received a five-day intensive training in phonological strategies while a comparable Control Group did not. The results showed that Chinese dyslexic children did not use the phonological strategies as efficiently as Chinese average readers, and the training programme was effective in significantly improving the Experimental Group’s reading performance. This suggests that Chinese dyslexic children can benefit from training in phonological strategies.