Cerebral laterality in dyslexic children: Implications for phonological word decoding deficits

The study evaluated a substantially updated version of Orton's (1937) classical idea of a significant relatonship in dyslexic children between cerebral lateralization and their word decoding deficits. Attentional lateralization was examined under the assumption that covert spatial attention when directed contralaterally interacts with ageinvariant cerebral asymmetries for receptive speech. Thirty dysphonetic dyslexic children were compared to 30 younger normal readers who were matched to the dyslexics in reading comprehension. The children were tested in left ear (LE) and right ear (RE) directed attention dichotic listening (DAD), and in pseudoword decoding, word recognition, reading comprehension, spelling, arithmetic, and in general intelligence (IQ). Group comparisons in DAD failed to show any differences, confirming the mounting evidence that dyslexia is not related to incomplete lateralization. Entering the DAD scores of the dyslexics (LE first, LE second, RE first, RE second) as predictors of achievement revealed that, independently of chronological age (CA) and IQ, their ability to recall items from the LE first produced a negative regression which predicted 42 percent of the variance in pseudoword decoding. Selective report from the LE also produced small but significant negative correlations with visual recognition of real words and spelling; but no relationship to reading comprehension. IQ was related to reading comprehension and to the ability to shift attention from the LE to the RE. Eventhough the dyslexics were lateralized normally, weak lateralization was related specifically to phonological word decoding, a core deficit in dyslexia. However, unlike Orton's concept, these findings suggest that dyslexics suffer from exuberant right hemisphere processing in response to spatial attentional demands that, in turn, interferes transcallosally with the development of the sound-symbol representations that are required for fluent reading. Lateralization, per se, is unaffected by the disorder.     

Beyond phonological skills: broader language skills contribute to the development of reading

This paper reports a study that followed the development of reading skills in 72 children from the age of 8.5 to 13 years. Each child was administered tests of reading, oral language, phonological skills and nonverbal ability at time 1 and their performance on tests of reading comprehension, word recognition, nonword decoding and exception word reading was assessed at time 2. In addition to phonological skills, three measures of non‐phonological oral language tapping vocabulary knowledge and listening comprehension were unique concurrent predictors of both reading comprehension and word recognition at time 1. Importantly, all three measures of oral language skill also contributed unique variance to individual differences in reading comprehension, word recognition and exception word reading four and a half years later, even when the autoregressive effects of early reading skill were controlled. Moreover, the extent to which a child's word recognition departed from the level predicted from their decoding ability correlated with their oral language skills. These findings suggest that children's oral language proficiency, as well as their phonological skills, influences the course of reading development.     

Auditory processing,linguistic prosody awareness,and word reading in Mandarin-speaking children learning English

This study examined language-specific links among auditory processing, linguistic prosody awareness, and Mandarin (L1) and English (L2) word reading in 61 Mandarin-speaking, English-learning children. Three auditory discrimination abilities were measured: pitch contour, pitch interval, and rise time (rate of intensity change at tone onset). Linguistic prosody awareness was measured three ways: Mandarin tone perception, English stress perception, and English stress production. A Chinese character recognition task was the Mandarin L1 reading metric. English L2 word reading was assessed by English real word reading and nonword decoding tasks. The importance of the auditory processing measures to reading was different in the two languages. Pitch contour discrimination predicted Mandarin L1 word reading and rise time discrimination predicted English L2 word reading, after controlling for age and nonverbal IQ. For the prosodic and phonological measures, Mandarin tone perception, but not rhyme awareness, predicted Chinese character recognition after controlling for age and nonverbal IQ. In contrast, English rhyme awareness predicted more unique variance in English real word reading and nonword decoding than did English stress perception and production. Linguistic prosody awareness appears to play a more important role in L1 word reading than phonological awareness; while the reverse seems true for English L2 word reading in Mandarin-speaking children. Taken together, auditory processing, language-specific linguistic prosody awareness, and phonological awareness play different roles in L1/L2 reading, reflecting different prosodic and segmental structures between Mandarin and English.     

Patterns of phonological and memory processing in beginning readers and spellers of Greek

This study examined the patterns of reading and spelling performance of first-grade Greek children who either were facing difficulties in literacy acquisition or were normal achievers. In addition, we studied the relationship between obtained literacy development levels and the children's phonological awareness and ability to retain phonological information in short-term memory. The participants were tested in the reading of single letters, letter clusters, words, and nonwords, as well as in word and nonword spelling. Furthermore, their phonological processing knowledge was assessed via a battery of phonological awareness tasks and short-term memory phonetic-representation tasks. The main findings of the study were as follows: (a) Accurate decoding of Greek was achieved by almost every young child (attributed mainly to the nature of the Greek writing system); (b) the time the children needed to process a written item was the crucial index of their difficulty in literacy acquisition; (c) spelling was performed by deriving the orthographic form of a word on the basis of sound-spelling correspondence knowledge; (d) although the children with difficulties in literacy development had achieved a satisfactory performance in phonological processing, their performance was nevertheless significantly lower than that of the normal achievers; and (e) phonemic awareness and speech rate tasks were among the best predictors of learning to read and spell Greek words.     

Teaching children with dyslexia to spell in a reading-writers’ workshop

To identify effective treatment for both the spelling and word decoding problems in dyslexia, 24 students with dyslexia in grades 4 to 9 were randomly assigned to treatments A (n?=?12) or B (n?=?12) in an after-school reading-writers’ workshop at the university (thirty 1-h sessions twice a week over 5 months). First, both groups received step 1 treatment of grapheme–phoneme correspondences (gpc) for oral reading. At step 2, treatment A received gpc training for both oral reading and spelling, and treatment B received gpc training for oral reading and phonological awareness. At step 3, treatment A received orthographic spelling strategy and rapid accelerated reading program (RAP) training, and treatment B continued step 2 training. At step 4, treatment A received morphological strategies and RAP training, and treatment B received orthographic spelling strategy training. Each treatment also had the same integrated reading–writing activities, which many school assignments require. Both groups improved significantly in automatic letter writing, spelling real words, compositional fluency, and oral reading (decoding) rate. Treatment A significantly outperformed treatment B in decoding rate after step 3 orthographic training, which in turn uniquely predicted spelling real words. Letter processing rate increased during step 3 RAP training and correlated significantly with two silent reading fluency measures. Adding orthographic strategies with “working memory in mind” to phonics helps students with dyslexia spell and read English words.     

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.     

Modeling Phonological Core Deficits Within a Working Memory Architecture in Children and Adults With Developmental Dyslexia

Recent theoretical advances in working memory guided analyses of cognitive measures in 122 children with dyslexia and their 200 affected biological parents in families with a multigenerational history of dyslexia. Both children and adults were most severely impaired, on average, in three working memory components— phonological word-form storage, time-sensitive phonological loop, and executive functions involving phonology. Structural equation modeling showed that, for children, first-order factors from the phonological, orthographic, and/or morphological word forms uniquely predicted 11 reading and writing outcomes but, for adults, a second-order factor (reflecting interrelationships among the three first-order word-form factors) was more likely to be significant in predicting the same reading and writing outcomes. Structural equation modeling of the three working memory component factors showed that the most consistent predictor of text-level reading and writing for both children and adults was the second-order word-form factor. Phonological loop and executive support could be modeled as separate factors in children but only as combined factors in adults. Executive support in children and combined phonological loop and executive support in adults contributed uniquely to oral reading but did not contribute uniquely to reading comprehension or written expression. For both children and adults, individual differences occurred as to which of the three working memory components or three word forms fell outside the normal range.     

Development of and Relationship Between Phonological and Motivational Processes and Naming Speed in Predicting Word Recognition in Grade 1

In this 2-year longitudinal study the developmental relationships among letter knowledge, phonological awareness, rapid naming, and task orientation were examined, and linguistic-motivational pathways of word reading acquisition were traced from kindergarten to Grade 1 by means of structural equation modeling. The participants were 100 Finnish-speaking nonreaders. Results showed that kindergarten (5–6 years) letter knowledge predicted subsequent preschool (6–7 years) phonological awareness and task orientation. RAN was a unique longitudinal and concurrent predictor of word recognition, suggesting that rapid naming provides a reliable prediction of prospective word reading ability at least in a transparent language. Controlling for phonological awareness and rapid naming, task orientation contributed uniquely to the prediction of word reading competence, suggesting that motivational and linguistic factors are both at work as children face the gradually growing demands of learning to read and write in Grade 1.     

Predicting individual differences in reading comprehension: a twin study

We examined the Simple View of reading from a behavioral genetic perspective. Two aspects of word decoding (phonological decoding and word recognition), two aspects of oral language skill (listening comprehension and vocabulary), and reading comprehension were assessed in a twin sample at age 9. Using latent factor models, we found that overlap among phonological decoding, word recognition, listening comprehension, vocabulary, and reading comprehension was primarily due to genetic influences. Shared environmental influences accounted for associations among word recognition, listening comprehension, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. Independent of phonological decoding and word recognition, there was a separate genetic link between listening comprehension, vocabulary, and reading comprehension and a specific shared environmental link between vocabulary and reading comprehension. There were no residual genetic or environmental influences on reading comprehension. The findings provide evidence for a genetic basis to the “Simple View” of reading.     

How do phonological processing abilities contribute to early Chinese reading and mathematics?

Abstract

The present study examined phonological processing skills (phonological memory, phonological awareness, and rapid automatised naming, RAN) in relation to early Chinese reading and early Chinese mathematics for young children. Early Chinese reading was assessed with single character reading and multi-character word reading, and early mathematics was assessed with procedural arithmetic and arithmetic story problems. Among 86 Chinese kindergarteners, phonological processing skills explained 20% of the variance in character reading and 28% of the variance in word reading; they accounted for 8% of the variance in arithmetic and 11% of the variance in story problem performance. Specifically, findings further highlight the general importance of phonological awareness in early Chinese single character reading, word reading, simple arithmetic and story problems, and the specific role of RAN in single character reading and simple arithmetic.

• Highlights

• Phonological awareness and rapid automatised naming explained unique variance in Chinese single character reading and procedural arithmetic.

• Only phonological awareness significantly accounted for unique variance in Chinese word reading and arithmetic story problems.

• The associations of phonological awareness with procedural arithmetic and arithmetic story problem were maintained even beyond other variables.

     

Basic auditory processing and developmental dyslexia in Chinese

The present study explores the relationship between basic auditory processing of sound rise time, frequency, duration and intensity, phonological skills (onset-rime and tone awareness, sound blending, RAN, and phonological memory) and reading disability in Chinese. A series of psychometric, literacy, phonological, auditory, and character processing tasks were given to 73 native speakers of Mandarin with an average age of 9.7 years. Twenty-six children had developmental dyslexia, 29 were chronological age-matched controls (CA controls) and 18 were reading-matched controls (RL controls). Chinese children with dyslexia were significantly poorer than CA controls in almost all phonological tasks, in semantic radical search, and in phonological recoding proficiency. Chinese children with dyslexia also showed significant impairments in most of the basic auditory processing tasks. Regression analyses demonstrated that different auditory measures of rise time discrimination were the strongest predictors of individual differences in Chinese character reading (1 Rise task) and phonological recoding (2 Rise task) respectively, with frequency discrimination also important for nonsense syllable decoding. Our results support the hypothesis that accurate perception of the amplitude envelope of speech is critical for phonological development and consequently reading acquisition across languages.     

Reading comprehension skills of young adults with childhood diagnoses of dyslexia

This study explores the contribution of cognitive processes to comprehension skills in adults who suffered from childhood developmental dyslexia (CD). The performance of adults with CD (ages 17 to 23), chronological age-matched (CA) adults, and reading level-matched (RL) children was compared on measures of phonological processing, naming speed, working memory (WM), general knowledge, vocabulary, and comprehension. The results showed that adults with CD scored lower on measures of phonological processing, naming speed, WM, general knowledge, and vocabulary when compared to CA readers but were comparable to RL children on the majority of process measures. Phonological processing, naming speed, vocabulary, general knowledge, and listening comprehension contributed independent variance to reading comprehension accuracy, whereas WM, intelligence, phonological processing, and listening comprehension contributed independent variance to comprehension fluency. Adults with CD scored lower than CA adults and higher than RL children on measures of lexical processing, WM, and listening comprehension when word recognition and intelligence were partialed from the analysis. In summary, constraints in phonological processing and naming speed mediate only some of the influence of high-order processes on reading comprehension. Furthermore, adults with CD experience difficulties in WM, listening comprehension, and vocabulary independently of their word recognition problems and intellectual ability.     

Do the effects of computer-assisted practice differ for children with reading disabilities with and without IQ-achievement discrepancy?

This study was designed to assess whether the effects of computer-assisted practice on visual word recognition differed for children with reading disabilities (RD) with or without aptitude-achievement discrepancy. A sample of 73 Spanish children with low reading performance was selected using the discrepancy method, based on a standard score comparison (i.e., the difference between IQ and achievement standard scores). The sample was classified into three groups: (1) a group of 14 children with dyslexia (age M = 103.85 months; SD = 8.45) who received computer-based reading practice; (2) a group of 31 "garden-variety" (GV) poor readers (age M = 107.06 months; SD = 6.75) who received the same type of instruction; and (3) a group of 28 children with low reading performance (age M = 103.33 months; SD = 9.04) who did not receive computer-assisted practice. Children were pre- and posttested in word recognition, reading comprehension, phonological awareness, and visual and phonological tasks. The results indicated that both computer-assisted intervention groups showed improved word recognition compared to the control group. Nevertheless, children with dyslexia had more difficulties than GV poor readers during computer-based word reading under conditions that required extensive phonological computation, because their performance was more affected by low-frequency words and long words. In conclusion, we did not find empirical evidence in favor of the IQ-achievement discrepancy definition of reading disability, because IQ did not differentially predict treatment outcomes.     

Adults with dyslexia: how can they achieve academic success despite impairments in basic reading and writing abilities? The role of text structure sensitivity as a compensatory skill

The aim of this study was to investigate (1) whether a sample of highly educated individuals with dyslexia living under optimal personal, educational, cultural, and socioeconomic conditions continues to display core deficits in reading and writing skills during adulthood (extending prior results in Dutch, English, Hebrew, and Spanish to the Portuguese writing system); (2) whether these individuals can compensate for the effects of persistent core deficits when reading complex academic texts; (3) which cognitive resources, such as reading strategies, are used as compensatory mechanisms; and (4) whether quality of life is affected in these individuals. These questions were examined in a sample of 28 adults with dyslexia (DG) and 28 control participants (CG) paired by sex, age, education, and occupation, with a mean of 15 years of formal education. Participants completed measures of phonological awareness; decoding of syllables, words, and pseudowords; writing; reading comprehension (inferential and literal questions, recall, and sensitivity to the rhetorical structure of the target text); and quality of life. Results showed that (1) core deficits associated with dyslexia persisted into adulthood: participants with dyslexia performed worse than control subjects at all levels of phonological awareness, reading (except word reading accuracy), and spelling; (2) the groups did not differ on any measures of reading comprehension, suggesting a compensation of core deficits; (3) three compensatory mechanisms were identified: slower reading, use of text structure, and verbal ability; (4) participants with dyslexia required more family support and professional help throughout their educational careers, and had more depressive symptoms than control subjects.     

Word stress production in three‐year‐old children at risk of dyslexia

We investigated Dutch word stress acquisition in 3‐year‐old children at risk of dyslexia (children with at least one parent or older sibling with reading difficulties) and normally developing children, in order to shed light on language acquisition delays in children at risk of dyslexia, as well as to investigate further phonological deficits in dyslexia. The children had to repeat non‐words with stress patterns varying in regularity. Both the at‐risk and control children performed better on imitation of regular stress targets and worse on irregular and prohibited stress patterns. However, the at‐risk children showed more difficulty imitating irregular and prohibited patterns, and had lower percentages phonemes correct than the control group. The results can be interpreted as a delay in word stress acquisition in the at‐risk group. The findings thus point towards a phonological deficit early in language development.     

Preschool predictors of dyslexia status in Chinese first graders with high or low familial risk

The present 4-year longitudinal study examined preschool predictors of Grade 1 dyslexia status in a Chinese population in Hong Kong where children started learning to read at the age of three. Seventy-five and 39 Chinese children with high and low familial risk respectively were tested on Chinese word reading, oral language skills, morphological awareness, phonological skills, rapid naming, and print-related skills from age 4 to 6 and a standardized dyslexia test at age 7. Results showed that children of the high risk group performed significantly worse than the low risk group in Chinese literacy, phonological awareness, and orthographic skills at age 7. All the children with dyslexia had word reading difficulties in at least one preschool year. Results of the logistic regression showed that preschool verbal production, syllable deletion, and letter naming were the best predictors of dyslexia outcome at age 7. As in alphabetic languages, preschool oral language skills like verbal production, phonological skills, and print-related skills are the most significant predictors of children’s later reading difficulties.     

ADHD and reading disability in male adults: is there a connection?

The present study examined the comorbidity between attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and reading disability (RD) in male adults. Participants were 120 men, of whom 24 were classified as having ADHD. The basis for the diagnosis was two self-report scales validated by interviews and background data. An extensive battery was used to assess phonological abilities and various aspects of reading skills. No differences were obtained between adults with and without ADHD on measures of either phonological processing skills or word decoding, indicating a low comorbidity with RD. This finding was valid even when different criteria were used to diagnose RD. However, the two groups differed in reading comprehension, with individuals with ADHD performing poorly in tests of reading comprehension. These results are compatible with the view that reading comprehension involves many of the higher cognitive control functions assumed to be impaired in ADHD. However, these attentional control functions are not critical to word recognition, which is determined by a more encapsulated phonological processing module. The pattern of associations between ADHD and RD observed in the present study is explained with reference to the differential attentional demands of the two aspects of reading.     

Rapid naming in relation to reading and writing in Korean (Hangul), Chinese (Hanja) and English among Korean children: a 1‐year longitudinal study

The relation of rapid automatised naming (RAN) to word recognition may depend on the phonological regularity of the orthography. This study examined differential contributions of RAN to reading and writing in Korean alphabetic Hangul, logographic Hanja (Chinese) and English as a second language among 73 fifth graders in Korea across 1 year. RAN was differentially associated between reading and writing in Hangul and English. After statistically controlling for age, gender, morphological awareness, vocabulary and phonological awareness, RAN was uniquely predictive of Hangul word writing but not Hangul word recognition, and it uniquely accounted for English word recognition but not English word writing. Meanwhile, RAN explained both reading and writing in Hanja. Findings were discussed in terms of their orthography characteristics and different levels of proficiency.