Phonological and lexical reading in Italian children with dyslexia

In this study we explore the development of phonological and lexical reading in dyslexic children. We tested a group of 14 Italian children who have been diagnosed with dyslexia and whose reading age is end of grade 1. We compared this group with a group of 70 typically developing children who have been tested for reading at the end of grade 1. For each dyslexic child we also selected a participant who was attending the same grade, was close in age, and showed typical reading development when tested with a narrative passage reading task (Cornoldi, Colpo, & Gruppo MT, 1981) for correctness and reading speed. Children in this group are “same grade controls.” We used a reading task consisting of 40 three syllables words. A qualitative and quantitative method of coding children’s naming allowed us to distinguish several components of their reading performance: the grapheme and word recognition, the size of orthographic units involved in the aloud orthography–phonology conversion, the reading process used to recognize words. The comparison of the dyslexic group with the reading age and the same grade control groups reveals different trends of delayed reading processes. Considering dyslexic children’s chronological age, lexical reading is greatly delayed. Considering dyslexic children’s reading age, the type of reading process that is more deeply delayed is phonological reading. The rate of fragmented phonological reading (i.e., a type of syllabized phonological reading) is much higher in dyslexic children compared to the reading age group, suggesting that some factors undermine the possibility of internalizing the orthography–phonology conversion and the blending processes.     

Specific reading disability: Follow-up studies

Twenty-four children with specific reading disability, originally studied and treated at the Bellevue Hospital Mental Hygiene Clinic between 1949 and 1951, were reexamined as young adults between 1961 and 1962 with the battery of tests given to them ten to 12 years before. Their specific perceptual problems and evidence of lack of clear- out cerebral dominance persists, although in less severe form. Those patients who as children had neurological signs in addition to the specific reading disability showed less improvement than those who had none.     

Specificity and parameters in defining dyslexia

Conclusion The concern for specificity in definition on the part of researchers and policy makers is understandable. Those on the line, confronted by children who need to be helped, and those who have a working familiarity with the complexity of the reading process, and of the reading disability syndrome, may share my reservations about this specificity: that in defining reading disability strictly in terms of a significant deviation from IQ restrictions are imposed that may obscure important aspects and interactions in the clinical picture. I am in favor of careful selection of samples and of persistence in the search for better defining parameters. Until we have them it may be desirable to operate within looser guidelines and to base treatment on a careful evaluation of linguistic, cognitive, emotional and cultural functioning, when the aim is to teach individual children. If Alexander Pope’s admonition (in “An Essay on Criticism,” Part I) is kept in mind we should not go too far astray: First follow Nature, and your judgment frame By her just standard... This paper was presented at the pre-conference symposium on the definition of dyslexia at the 29th Annual Conference of the Orton Society, Minneapolis, November 1978.     

Differentiating the neural response to intervention in children with developmental dyslexia

Developmental dyslexia is associated with functional abnormalities within reading areas of the brain. For some children diagnosed with dyslexia, phonologically based remediation programs appear to rehabilitate brain function in key reading areas (Shaywitz et al., Biological Psychiatry 55: 101–110, 2004; Simos et al., Neuroscience 58: 1203–1213, 2002). However, a non-trivial number of children diagnosed with dyslexia fail to respond to these interventions (Torgesen, Learning Disabilities Research & Practice 15: 55–64, 2000). A cross-sectional fMRI study investigating post-treatment effects was conducted in an effort to better understand differences in brain function between treatment responders and non-responders. Educational testing and brain activation measured after treatment suggested that the reading intervention used in the present study rehabilitated several basic level reading processes in all participants diagnosed with dyslexia. However, activation in the left inferior parietal lobe differentiated treatment responders and non-responders in comparison to non-impaired readers. Children with persistent deficits in single word decoding (treatment non-responders) demonstrated significantly less activation in the left inferior parietal lobe when compared to non-impaired readers.     

The impact of virtual reality on parents’ awareness of cognitive perceptions of a dyslectic child

Parents of dyslexic children encounter many difficulties in understanding and accepting their children’s disability. This affects the child’s self-image and the way s/he copes (Hallahan and Kauffman 1991; Einat 2003). The goal of this study was to develop VR immersive simulated states. The simulation was designed to help the parents of dyslexic children experience the kind of errors their children make when reading. Two groups of parents of dyslexic children participated in this experiment, an experimental group (N = 37), which experienced ten 3D worlds simulating different kinds of reading errors, and a control group (N = 30), that watched a movie describing and explaining similar errors. All the subjects were administered a cognitive questionnaire (Shavit 2005) before and after the intervention. In addition, the participants in the experimental group were interviewed before and after the intervention. The results indicate that experiencing a variety of simulated types of dyslexia with virtual reality can bring about improvement in parents’ awareness of the dyslexic child’s cognitive experiences, and that this improvement is significantly greater than that achieved by watching a film about dyslexia.     

The effects of phonological transparency on reading derived words

The purpose of this study was to determine whether poor readers have more pronounced problems than average-reading peers reading derived words the base forms of which undergo a phonological shift when a suffix is added (i.e., shift relations as in “natural”), as compared to derived words whose forms are phonologically and orthographically transparent (i.e., stable relations, as in “cultural”). Two computer-based word recognition tasks (Naming and Lexical Decision) were administered to children with reading disability (RD), peers with average reading ability, and adults. Across tasks, there was an effect for transparency (i.e., better performance on stable than shift words) for both child groups and the adults. For the children, a significant interaction was found between group and word type. Specifically, on the naming task, there was an advantage for the stable words, and this was most noteworthy for the children with RD. On the lexical decision task, trade-offs of speed and accuracy were evident for the child reader groups. Performances on the nonwords showed the poor readers to be comparable to the average readers in distinguishing legal and illegal nonwords; further analyses suggested that poor readers carried out deeper processing of derived words than their average reading peers. Additional study is needed to explore the relation of orthographic and phonological processing on poor readers’ memory for and processing of derived words.     

The effects of CD-ROM storybook reading on Israeli children’s early literacy as a function of age group and repeated reading

The effects of reading a CD-ROM storybook on children’s early literacy were examined as a function of their age group and the number of times they used the software. The investigation was carried out on 214 children: 108 pre-kindergarten children (aged 4:2 to 5:3) and 106 kindergarten children (aged 5:3–6:4). This population included 107 girls and 107 boys. The children in each group were randomly assigned to one of three groups. The first intervention group was afforded three CD-ROM storybook reading sessions. The second group was afforded five reading sessions and the third group served as a control and was afforded the regular kindergarten program. Pre- and post-intervention early literacy measures included vocabulary, word recognition and phonological awareness. No age group differences were found between the children’s early literacy progress after using the software and no interaction was found between age group and the number of reading sessions. Children from both age groups exhibited a similar level of story comprehension. Children who used the software five times exhibited greater progress in word meaning than those who used it three times and children in both of these groups did better than the control group. Children who used the software five times exhibited greater progress in word reading and phonological awareness than children in the control group. Implications for future research and education are discussed.     

CHILDREN RECEIVING REMEDIAL TEACHING IN READING

Over 1,200 children receiving remedial teaching in reading were studied on ten main variables: IQ, chronological age, mental age, initial reading age, reading age after treatment, treatment length, number of attendances, percentage attendance, size of teaching group, and improvement. Sex distribution and laterality patterns were also examined.

The findings of many previous smaller studies were in general borne out. In particular, little relationship was found between lateral dominance and reading disability or between intelligence as measured and reading improvement. Only when groups contained more than six children did group size affect progress adversely. Further studies are in hand.     

Back to Africa: Tracing Dyslexia Genes in East Africa

A sample of Swahili-speaking probands with reading difficulties was identified from a large representative sample of 1,500 school children in the rural areas of Tanzania. Families of these probands (n = 88) were invited to participate in the study. The proband and his/her siblings received a battery of reading-related tasks and performance on these tasks was recorded and treated as phenotypic data. Molecular-genetic analyses were carried out with 47 highly polymorphic markers spanning three previously identified regions of interest harboring susceptibility loci for reading difficulties: 2p, 6p, and 15q (DYX1–DYX3). The analyses revealed the involvement of these regions in the development of reading difficulties in Swahili. The linkage signals are especially pronounced for time (compared with error) indicators of reading difficulties. These findings are easily interpretable because in transparent languages such as Swahili deficits in reading are more related to the rate/speed of reading and reading-related processes than to the number of errors made. In short, the study incrementally advances the field by adding an understudied language and an understudied population to the variety of languages and populations in the field of molecular-genetic studies of reading difficulties.     

Reading vocabulary influences in phonological recoding during the development of reading skill: a re-examination of theory and practice

Children’s skill at recoding graphemes to phonemes is widely understood as the driver of their progress in acquiring reading vocabulary. This recoding skill is usually assessed by children’s reading of pseudowords (e.g., yeep) that represent “new words.” This study re-examined the extent to which pseudoword reading is, itself, influenced by orthographic rimes (e.g., eep) of words of the child’s reading vocabulary, during the development of reading skill. In Study 1, children with word reading levels of 6–10 years read matched pseudowords that do and do not share an orthographic rime with words of their reading vocabularies. Study 2 was conducted to further examine such a comparison for children of the 6- to 8-year word reading levels. There was a small and constant advantage of shared lexical orthographic rimes for children with reading levels 6–8 years but from 8 to 10 years that advantage increased significantly, as expected by Ehri’s phase account of word reading development. The pseudoword reading of children learning to read English involves use of lexical orthographic components as well as context-free recoding of graphemes to phonemes. This implies a qualification to the common interpretation of pseudoword reading as a measure of context-free grapheme–phoneme recoding. Such a measure should use selected pseudowords that do not share orthographic rime units or other multigrapheme components with words of the children’s reading vocabularies.     

Is there a thing called dyslexia?

A controversy whether developmental dyslexia is qualitatively different from other forms of reading disability has existed among reading specialists for many years because poor readers, regardless of the labels attached to them, resemble each other symptomatically (i.e., in reading achievement). For this reason, it is difficult to establish a priori criteria based on symptoms to identify dyslexia and compare it with other forms of reading disability. One possible solution to this impasse is to see if poor readers differ in the etiology of their reading disability and, if they do, then to see whether one group of poor readers fits the traditional definition of dyslexia. This strategy was adopted in the present study. In this paper, it was hypothesized that the etiology of dyslexia is different from that of other forms of reading disability because there is a difference in the components that malfunction in dyslexia and other forms of reading disability. Studies have shown that the two components that account for a large proportion of variance in reading are decoding and comprehension. Previous studies also indicate that dyslexic children are deficient in decoding skills but not necessarily in comprehension. In this study, reading-disabled children were divided into two groups on the basis of their listening comprehension. Children whose listening comprehension was at or above grade level were placed in one group; poor readers with below-grade-level listening comprehension were placed in the second group. Both groups, however, were matched for reading comprehension. The two groups and a control group of normal readers were administered a number of tasks that were designed to assess the efficiency of the components of reading. It was found that poor readers with normal listening comprehension were deficient in tasks that involved grapheme-phoneme conversion (Component I, decoding). When tested on tasks that minimized decoding requirements, their reading comprehension was comparable to that of normal readers. In contrast, the group with sub-average listening comprehension was poor in measures of reading comprehension, even when decoding requirements were minimal. With the exception of very few children, this group also had adequate decoding skills. Because poor readers with normal listening comprehension had average or above average IQ, they conform to the traditional definition of dyslexia. Poor readers with below average listening comprehension had below average IQ and could be considered as “general reading backward.” It was, therefore, concluded that the etiology of developmental dyslexia is different from that of general reading backwardness. In this paper, the termetiology refers to proximal causal factors such as decoding and comprehension and not to distal causal factors such as genetic and neurological characteristics.     

A randomized experiment of a mixed-methods literacy intervention for struggling readers in grades 4–6: effects on word reading efficiency, reading comprehension and vocabulary, and oral reading fluency

The purpose of this study was (1) to examine the causal effects of READ 180, a mixed-methods literacy intervention, on measures of word reading efficiency, reading comprehension and vocabulary, and oral reading fluency and (2) to examine whether print exposure among children in the experimental condition explained variance in posttest reading scores. A total of 294 children in Grades 4–6 were randomly assigned to READ 180 or a district after-school program. Both programs were implemented 4 days per week over 23 weeks. Children in the READ 180 intervention participated in three 20-min literacy activities, including (1) individualized computer-assisted reading instruction with videos, leveled text, and word study activities, (2) independent and modeled reading practice with leveled books, and (3) teacher-directed reading lessons tailored to the reading level of children in small groups. Children in the district after-school program participated in a 60-min program in which teachers were able to select from 16 different enrichment activities that were designed to improve student attendance. There was no significant difference between children in READ 180 and the district after-school program on norm-referenced measures of word reading efficiency, reading comprehension, and vocabulary. Although READ 180 had a positive impact on oral reading fluency and attendance, these effects were restricted to children in Grade 4. Print exposure, as measured by the number of words children read on the READ 180 computer lessons, explained 4% of the variance in vocabulary and 2% of the variance in word reading efficiency after all pretest reading scores were partialed out.     

Maternal mediation in book reading, home literacy environment, and children’s emergent literacy: a comparison between two social groups

The researchers addressed two questions: (1) Does maternal reading mediation and family home literacy environment (HLE) relate to children’s emergent literacy (EL) level? and (2) Do the relationships among these variables differ as a function of socioeconomic strata (SES) level. A total of 94 5–6-year-old children, 47 from low SES (LSES) and 47 from high (HSES) families, and their mothers participated. Mother–child interactions while reading an unfamiliar book were videotaped and their verbal expressions were coded for extracting maternal mediation level. Children’s independent EL level was assessed prior to the interaction. Compared with the LSES group, HSES children showed higher EL levels and their homes had a richer literacy environment. Maternal mediation level differed by SES: LSES mothers paraphrased text more often; HSES mothers’ higher mediation level included a discussion of the written system and making connections beyond the text. In the HSES group, maternal mediation level and HLE related to children’s EL; no such relationships appeared in the LSES group. Results are discussed in terms of children’s socio-economic background and their reading experiences. Implications for researchers and educational practices about the relationships between children’s literacy development, SES, HLE, and parental mediation are discussed.     

Developmental dyslexia in an orthography of intermediate depth: the case of European Portuguese

Fifteen Portuguese children with dyslexia, aged 9–11 years, were compared with reading and chronological age controls with respect to five indicators related to the phonological deficit hypothesis: the effects of lexicality, regularity, and length, implicit and explicit phonological awareness, and rapid naming. The comparison between groups indicates that Portuguese children with dyslexia have a phonological impairment which is revealed by a developmental deficit in implicit phonological awareness and irregular word reading (where younger reading level controls performed better than dyslexics) and by a developmental delay in decoding ability and explicit phonological awareness (where dyslexics matched reading level controls). These results are discussed in relation to the idea that European Portuguese is written in an orthography of intermediate depth.     

Early phonological and lexical markers of reading disabilities

Phonological and lexical characteristics of 30-month-old children’s spontaneous language samples were examined as indicators of later reading outcome. Participants were 27 children, 10 children with reading disability and 17 children without reading disability. Of the non-disabled readers, 7 were at high familial risk for reading disability, and 10 came from families with no history of reading difficulties. Children later identified as reading disabled at second grade and beyond demonstrated narrower lexical diversity and simpler phonological forms as compared to the normal reading participants. Implications of reduced phonological complexity in the productive lexicons of reading disabled children are discussed.     

Early literacy interventions: The relative roles of storybook reading, alphabetic activities, and their combination

The study examined the differential contributions on vocabulary and alphabetic skills of three literacy programs: (a) storybook reading program; (b) alphabetic skills program; and (c) a combined program. It was expected that storybook reading would enhance primarily vocabulary while alphabetic skills training would promote primarily alphabetic skills. Program by age interactions were examined in two age groups (3–4 and 4–5 years old) to test whether the storybook reading program may be more productive for the younger children whereas alphabetic skills program more productive for the older children. Twelve low-SES preschools participated in the study, three in each program and three as a comparison group. Results indicated that the children in the three intervention programs progressed significantly more than the comparison group on name writing, letter knowledge and phonological awareness. Further, the alphabetic skills program outperformed the other groups on word writing, letter knowledge and initial letter retrieval, whereas the storybook reading program outperformed only the comparison group. Results on the combined program were mixed – enhancing more initial letter retrieval and book vocabulary than storybook reading program. In general, no differences emerged in the progress of younger versus older children except on receptive vocabulary – the younger surpassing the older in all programs.     

Behavioral and neurophysiological effects of morphological awareness training on spelling and reading

Behavioral and neurophysiological effects of a computer-aided morphological training protocol were examined in German-speaking children from Grades 3 to 9. Study 1 compared morphological awareness, reading, and spelling skills of 34 trained children with an untrained control group of 34 children matched for age, sex, and intelligence. All participants in the training group showed increases in morphological awareness, but only students from secondary school improved significantly in reading and spelling competences. In Study 2, a subsample of 8 trained children with poor spelling and reading abilities and 10 untrained children with higher language competencies underwent an electroencephalography testing involving three different language tasks. The training resulted in decreased theta-activity and increased activity in lower (7–10 Hz) and upper alpha (10–13 Hz). These findings reflect more effortful and attention-demanding processing after the training and suggest that children with poor spelling and reading abilities use the acquired morphological knowledge in terms of a compensatory strategy.     

Speech production deficits in early readers: predictors of risk

Speech problems and reading disorders are linked, suggesting that speech problems may potentially be an early marker of later difficulty in associating graphemes with phonemes. Current norms suggest that complete mastery of the production of the consonant phonemes in English occurs in most children at around 6–7 years. Many children enter formal schooling (kindergarten) around 5 years of age with near-adult levels of speech production. Given that previous research has shown that speech production abilities and phonological awareness skills are linked in preschool children, we set out to examine whether this pattern also holds for children just beginning to learn to read, as suggested by the critical age hypothesis. In the present study, using a diverse sample, we explored whether expressive phonological skills in 92 5-year-old children at the beginning and end of kindergarten were associated with early reading skills. Speech errors were coded according to whether they were developmentally appropriate, position within the syllable, manner of production of the target sounds, and whether the error involved a substitution, omission, or addition of a speech sound. At the beginning of the school year, children with significant early reading deficits on a predictively normed test (DIBELS) made more speech errors than children who were at grade level. Most of these errors were typical of kindergarten children (e.g., substitutions involving fricatives), but reading-delayed children made more of these errors than children who entered kindergarten with grade level skills. The reading-delayed children also made more atypical errors, consistent with our previous findings about preschoolers. Children who made no speech errors at the beginning of kindergarten had superior early reading abilities, and improvements in speech errors over the course of the year were significantly correlated with year-end reading skills. The role of expressive vocabulary and working memory were also explored, and appear to account for some of these findings.     

The relationship between teaching practices and student achievement in first year classes

This study investigated the links between the teaching practices of primary school teachers (n = 200) who were observed while presenting a new text to their first year classes, and the student achievement levels in those classes. The teaching practices are specifically concerned with the way the teachers supported and encouraged students’ activities during verbal interactions. Two different populations were observed: classes of first year students with a reduced teacher–student ratio (about ten students per class) and classes with a normal teacher–student ratio (between 20 and 25 students per class). We found that the average level of student achievement in the reduced size classes was higher than in the standard size classes but that teaching practices differed only at precise periods of group or individual introduction to new reading texts. In these periods, we found links between teaching practices and student achievement.