Four-year follow-up study of language impaired children

Children identified as normal or as specifically language impaired (SLI) were given speech, language, and intelligence testing on a longitudinal basis. Fourteen normal and 29 SLI children between the ages of 4 1/2 and 8 years were tested at Time 1. They were retested three to four years later when they were 8 to 12 years old. The results indicated that both the normal and the SLI children continued to develop skills in receptive and expressive language and speech articulation across the 3- to 4-year period intervening between evaluations. Overall, however, the SLI children appeared to develop language skills at a slower than normal rate and 80% of them remained language impaired at Time 2. In addition, the majority of the SLI children manifested reading impairment at Time 2, while none of the normal children did so. The implications for the educational management of SLI children are discussed. Research supported by the March of Dimes, Grant #12-84. Presented at the 32nd Annual Conference of The Orton Dyslexia Society, Baltimore, Maryland, November 1982.     

Early identification and interventions for dyslexia: a contemporary view

This paper reviews current proposals concerning the definition of dyslexia and contrasts it with reading comprehension impairment. We then discuss methods for early identification and review evidence that teacher assessments and ratings may be valid screening tools. Finally, we argue that interventions should be theoretically motivated and evidence based. We conclude that early identification of children at risk of dyslexia followed by the implementation of intervention is a realistic aim for practitioners and policy‐makers.     

The early manifestation of developmental dyslexia: Evidence from German children

The present study retrospectively examined early difficulties with phonological coding and phonemic segmentation of German children who after four years in school were diagnosed as dyslexic. German, in comparison to English, exhibits rather simple and straight-forward grapheme-phoneme correspondences, and the initial teaching approach was phonics oriented. Despite these favorable circumstances for the acquisition of phonological coding, the majority of the later dyslexic children had particular difficulties with the accurate reading of nonwords and of unfamiliar words after about seven months of reading instruction. However, there were enormous differences between the dyslexic children. Two of them were completely unable to blend phonemes into pronunciations, another seven were slow and error prone decoders, and three children had slow and laborious pronunciation assembly as the core problem. The majority of the later dyslexic children also exhibited phonemic segmentation deficits as tested with a nonword spelling task and a phoneme reversal task. In correspondence with findings from older German dyslexic children, the early difficulties with accurate phonological coding and phonemic segmentation were no longer found at the end of grade four. Children then suffered from very slow reading and poor spelling. In general, the difficulties of German dyslexic children emphasize the phonological impairment account of dyslexia. More specifically, these findings suggest that the assembly of letter sounds into pronunciations is particularly affected in the early phase of learning to read a consistent orthography.     

Auditory temporal structure processing in dyslexia: processing of prosodic phrase boundaries is not impaired in children with dyslexia

Reading disability in children with dyslexia has been proposed to reflect impairment in auditory timing perception. We investigated one aspect of timing perception—temporal grouping—as present in prosodic phrase boundaries of natural speech, in age-matched groups of children, ages 6–8 years, with and without dyslexia. Prosodic phrase boundaries are characterized by temporal grouping of functionally related speech elements and can facilitate syntactic processing of speech. For example, temporary syntactic ambiguities, such as early-closure structures, are processed faster when prosodic phrase boundaries are present. We examined children’s prosodic facilitation by measuring their efficiency of sentence processing for temporary syntactic ambiguities spoken with (facilitating) versus without (neutral) prosodic phrase boundaries. Both groups of children benefited similarly from prosodic facilitation, displaying faster reaction times in facilitating compared to neutral prosody. These findings indicate that the use of prosodic phrase boundaries for speech processing is not impaired in children with dyslexia.     

Early cognitive and behavioral predictors of later performance: a follow-up study of ELBW children from ages 2 to 4

The aim of this study was to examine whether behavioral style and cognitive performance predict cognitive development in ELBW children. The children were assessed at age 2 (40 girls, 41 boys) with the Bayley Scales of Infant Development. At age 4 they were assessed with the WPPSI-R, and with the word fluency, visual attention and recognition of incomplete figures subsets of the Finnish Neuropsychological Investigation for Children (NEPSY-R; Korkman et al. 1997). The results indicated that there was stability in cognitive performance from 2 to 4 years of age. Along with cognitive performance, behavioral style, especially orientation-engagement at age 2, was an important predictor of subsequent cognitive performance (WPPSI-R). Significant gender differences were also found. For boys, orientation-engagement factor at time one was the best predictor of subsequent nonverbal cognitive performance, arithmetical abilities and word fluency at time two. In contrast, girls’ cognitive performance measured at the 2-year assessment was the most powerful predictor of nonverbal performance and word fluency at 4 years. As a whole, it seems that behavioral factors merit more consideration in understanding cognitive development than has been thought before.     

Early reading development in children at family risk for dyslexia

In a 3-year longitudinal study, middle- to upper-middle-class preschool children at high family risk (HR group, N = 67) and low family risk (LR group, N = 57) for dyslexia (or reading disability, RD), were evaluated yearly from before kindergarten to the end of second grade. Both phonological processing and literacy skills were tested at each of four time points. Consistent with the well-known familiarity of RD, 34% of the HR group compared with 6% of the LR group became RD. Participants who became RD showed deficits in both implicit and explicit phonological processing skills at all four time points, clearly indicating a broader phonological deficit than is often found at older ages. The predictors of literacy skill did not vary by risk group. Both risk groups underwent a similar developmental shift from letter-name knowledge to phoneme awareness as the main predictor of later literacy skill. This shift, however, occurred 2 years later in the HR group. Familial risk was continuous rather than discrete because HR children who did not become RD performed worse than LR non-RD children on some phonological and literacy measures. Finally, later RD could be predicted with moderate accuracy at age 5 years, with the strongest predictor being letter-name knowledge.     

Battered children grown up: a follow-up study of individuals severely maltreated as children.

Despite intensive research interest, the field of child abuse has produced few long-term follow-up studies. This paper describes the adult functioning of a group of 19 individuals who were severely battered as young children. Results indicate highly variable outcomes for the group: Some individuals exhibited limited autonomy and few adult coping skills while others were raising families, holding jobs, and maintaining functional social ties. There was little evidence of overt aggression in the group but resentment and suspiciousness scores were high. Many subjects maintained ties with their troubled parents while others sought out birth parents after losing contact with them in childhood. Several had developed long-term stable marriages, and social supports appeared adequate for most subjects in the group. Overall, study findings indicate that early abusive trauma and adult functioning have no simple relationship.     

Secondary symptoms of dyslexia: a comparison of self-esteem and anxiety profiles of children with and without dyslexia

The secondary symptoms of individuals with dyslexia, such as high anxiety and low self-esteem, have aroused various debates not only in the educational, but also in the clinical context. Since pro and contra arguments are supported by a more or less equal number of empirical findings, no final conclusion could be drawn for this specific phenomenon. The current study aims to contribute more data in this respect and offers a possible explanation for both sides that either support or reject the relationship between dyslexia and its secondary symptoms. The main investigation of this study is the comparison of anxiety and self-esteem profiles of children with and without dyslexia. Participants are 124 school children aged between eight and 11 years. Their IQ as well as their reading and writing ability were also measured and used as control variables. All data were collected and analysed using a quantitative approach. Effect sizes are also provided in order to facilitate meta-analysis in the future and to confirm the results of a significant test. The results indicate that children with dyslexia have anxiety and self-esteem issues in the specific context or domain. However, their general anxiety and self-esteem were not impaired. A discussion regarding the possibility and/or the necessity of the secondary symptoms of dyslexia is also provided.     

Reading development and dyslexia in a transparent orthography: a survey of Spanish children

Spanish-speaking children learn to read words printed in a relatively transparent orthography. Variation in orthographic transparency may shape the architecture of the reading system and also the manifestation of reading difficulties. We tested normally developing children and children diagnosed with reading difficulties. Reading accuracy was high across experimental conditions. However, dyslexic children read more slowly than chronological age (CA)-matched controls, although, importantly, their reading times did not differ from those for ability-matched controls. Reading times were significantly affected by frequency, orthographic neighbourhood size and word length. We also found a number of significant interaction effects. The effect of length was significantly modulated by reading ability, frequency and neighbourhood. Our findings suggest that the reading development of dyslexic children in Spanish is delayed rather than deviant. From an early age, the salient characteristic of reading development is reading speed, and the latter is influenced by specific knowledge about words.     

Assessing dyslexia in Finnish high-school students: a pilot study

A pilot study concerning Finnish dyslexics at senior high school (lukio), for 16–19-year-olds, is reported. The phonological processing deficit was assumed to underlie dyslexia in these late teenage subjects. The regular nature of Finnish orthography was taken into consideration. Four tasks were introduced to a total of 32 students, of whom 15 were dyslexics and 17 were controls. The controls outperformed the dyslexics on three tasks: text recoding, pseudoword recoding and pseudoword spelling. On the text spelling task, both groups performed equally well. In the correlational analysis of all subjects, both recoding tasks showed high correlations with selfestimated school achievement in language-related subjects. The recoding time appeared to be more important than the number of reading errors. These preliminary results suggest that the three tasks, capable of discriminating dyslexics, might be useful in the development of an adult dyslexia test in Finnish.     

Memory performance of children with dyslexia: a comparative analysis of theoretical perspectives

This study examined the memory performance of children with reading disabilities (RD) using methodology representative of three theoretical perspectives on RD subtypes: the phonological deficit, dual route, and phonological-core variable-difference models. Analyses compared the serial memory, verbal learning, and abstract visual-spatial memory performance of 45 children with RD to that of chronological-age (CA)- and reading-level (RL)-matched controls, using subtype identification methods from each of the theoretical models to classify children with RD. Phonological deficit and dual route comparisons indicated that children with RD, regardless of subtype, performed more poorly than CA- and better than RL-matched participants on all memory tasks. Phonological-core variable-difference methodology yielded three RD subtypes, two of which exhibited distinctive memory deficits relative to both CA and RL control groups. The phonological-core variable-difference model accounted for more variance in memory performance than either of the other two models.     

Family characteristics of children with dyslexia

Few studies have been devoted to the family characteristics of children with dyslexia. The findings from the studies available are often contradictory with regard to father's socioeconomic status, parents' age, sibship size, and birth order. Mother's socioeconomic status has attracted little attention. The present study was based on a retrospective review of 249 children with severe dyslexia. The major findings were the low occupational status and educational level of parents and the predominance of high-ranking children in large sibships. However, parental age was not found to be an important risk factor. These findings are discussed in the light of previous results. Matrimonial status seemed unimportant. There was objective agreement upon the predominance of large sibships and high ordinal birth positions, although their significance remains poorly understood. No convincing support was found for the aging hypothesis. Mother's low socioeconomic and educational status may be an aggravating factor.     

Families with abused children: A follow-up study of post-crisis support

Treatment provisions planned and executed were studied in a follow-up of 14 abused or neglected children three years after discharge from the Children's Department of Ullevaal Hospital. A majority of the families were shown to have received either no help or inappropriate help. Half of the children were evaluated as being so emotionally impaired that serious future adjustment problems could be anticipated. Inappropriate treatment related to lack of understanding, workers' own feelings and normative standards. Overidentification with parents and a general belief in their ability to develop caring skills were observed as was the tendency to overlook or minimize the child's experiences and the risk to which he was exposed. Anxiety, insecurity and lack of skill in establishing appropriate relationships prevented workers obtaining adequate bases for evaluation and for effectuation of treatment. Workers' professional situations were unfavorable in specified ways. Appropriate treatment was based on differentiated psychosocial evaluation, a high involvement level by the worker and continuity. The professional situation was also favorable. Workers combined traditional therapeutic approaches with conscious use of professional authority. They intervened actively for protective purposes but were empathetic with both child and parents.     

Gender ratio and cognitive profiles in dyslexia: a cross-national study

The purpose of this study was to analyze possible gender-related differences in the prevalence of dyslexia. A cross-national comparison of Spain and Guatemala was conducted. Both countries speak the same language but have a different standard of living and educational level. A second purpose of this study was to analyze the cognitive profile of Guatemalan and Spanish males and females children with dyslexia. The log-linear analysis indicated that the number of dyslexics detected was different across the countries but there were no differences as a function of gender. Similarly, there were no significant or meaningful differences between dyslexic males and females in the cognitive processes involved in reading. Therefore, gender differences do not appear to be characteristic of developmental dyslexia.     

Dyslexia heterogeneity: cognitive profiling of Portuguese children with dyslexia

Recent studies have emphasized that developmental dyslexia is a multiple-deficit disorder, in contrast to the traditional single-deficit view. In this context, cognitive profiling of children with dyslexia may be a relevant contribution to this unresolved discussion. The aim of this study was to profile 36 Portuguese children with dyslexia from the 2nd to 5th grade. Hierarchical cluster analysis was used to group participants according to their phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, verbal short-term memory, vocabulary, and nonverbal intelligence abilities. The results suggested a two-cluster solution: a group with poorer performance on phoneme deletion and rapid automatized naming compared with the remaining variables (Cluster 1) and a group characterized by underperforming on the variables most related to phonological processing (phoneme deletion and digit span), but not on rapid automatized naming (Cluster 2). Overall, the results seem more consistent with a hybrid perspective, such as that proposed by Pennington and colleagues (2012), for understanding the heterogeneity of dyslexia. The importance of characterizing the profiles of individuals with dyslexia becomes clear within the context of constructing remediation programs that are specifically targeted and are more effective in terms of intervention outcome.     

Evaluating the impact of dyslexia laws on the identification of specific learning disability and dyslexia

Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that impacts word reading accuracy and/or reading fluency. Over half of the states in the USA have passed legislation intended to promote better identification of individuals with dyslexia. To date, no study has been conducted to investigate the potential impact of state laws on the identification of specific learning disability (SLD), and limited data has been presented on the rate at which students in public school settings are identified with dyslexia. The first aim of the current study was to determine if any detectable changes in the identification rates of SLD have occurred in states implementing dyslexia laws because most states do not report number of students identified as dyslexic but rather those students identified with an SLD. The second aim of the study was to characterize the rate of identifying dyslexia in the two states (Texas and Arkansas) that require public schools to report the number of students identified with dyslexia. The third aim was to characterize the identification rate across first to 12th grades. Current SLD rates range from 3.2 to 8.5% in all 50 states. Analysis of SLD prevalence rates did not vary between states with and without dyslexia laws in place. Moreover, there was no change in the identification of SLD once states had implemented these laws. Rates of dyslexia in Arkansas and Texas were less than 5%. Given the persistent levels indicating lack of reading proficiency, our review of data suggests that overall students with dyslexia are being underidentified.