Do Italian dyslexic children use the lexical reading route efficiently? An orthographic judgment task

The study uses an orthographic judgment task to evaluate the efficiency of the lexical reading route in Italian dyslexic children. It has been suggested that Italian dyslexic children rely prevalently on the sub-word-level routine for reading. However, it is not easy to test the lexical reading route in Italian directly because of the lack of critical items (irregular words), so visual lexical decision tasks and the comprehension/detection of pseudo-homophones are often used. While the former may also be solved on the basis of visual familiarity or phonological re-codification, the latter also involves conceptual and syntactic skills. Eleven dyslexic children participated in the study, performing an orthographic judgment task on stimuli with two phonologically plausible spellings, of which only one was orthographically correct. Their performance was compared with those of 11 proficient readers. The dyslexic children showed selective impairment in detecting phonologically plausible errors, but their performance was normal when required to judge errors inserted in words with regular orthography, i.e., devoid of orthographic ambiguity, and for which a sub-word-level reading procedure is sufficient to guarantee a good performance. Overall, data are coherent with a diagnosis of surface dyslexia, with most children showing defective orthographic lexical processing.

Do bilingual children possess better phonological awareness? Investigation of Korean monolingual and Korean-English bilingual children

This study examined whether there are bilingual advantages in terms of phonological awareness (PA) for children acquiring two phonologically and orthographically different alphabetic languages and investigated the emergent literacy factors that explain variances in their PA, in comparison to monolingual children. The study participants comprised seventy 5- to 6-year-old Korean-English bilingual children who had attended English-medium kindergartens for at least 2 years and fifty-six Korean monolingual children whose age and L1 oral language proficiency were matched to the bilingual participants. They were tested on a range of PA and emergent literacy skill measures including decoding skills in both Korean and English. The study findings indicated that (1) the bilingual children had a bilingual advantage in PA tasks in both L1 and L2, (2) there was language transfer in processing L1 and L2 PA for both bilingual and monolingual children, and (3) the PA of the two groups was explained by different factors. The results are discussed in terms of language-specific L1 characteristics and the potential effects of instructional differences in language arts.     

Remedial interventions for children with reading disabilities: speech perception--an effective component in phonological training?

The effects of two types of phonological training in children with reading disabilities (RD) were examined. One of the programs (SP/LPA) trained children in speech discrimination, letter-sound correspondence, and phonemic awareness. The other program (LPA) trained children only in letter-sound correspondence and phonemic awareness. The effects of these programs were compared with a control group. Thirty-five children with RD were trained in small groups five times a week for 4 weeks. The results indicated that both experimental groups improved in phonemic awareness compared to the control group but that only the SP/LPA group scored higher than the control group in reading.     

Do children who acquire word reading without explicit phonics employ compensatory learning? Issues of phonological recoding, lexical orthography, and fluency

Two studies were conducted across three countries to examine samples of beginning readers without systematic explicit phonics who had reached the same level of word reading accuracy as comparison samples with high and moderate explicit phonics. Had they employed any compensatory learning to reach that level? Four hypotheses of compensatory learning or performance were tested on the samples, all of which represented the lower half of the normative distribution of word reading accuracy. The two samples without explicit phonics received teaching that centered on story text reading and some receptive phonics that arose from this text reading. They did not compensate by relatively greater use of a larger psycholinguistic grain size in the form of rime units. Nor did they compensate by trading off comprehension for text word reading accuracy. In a microtraining study, they showed no compensation in proficiency of initial learning of lexical orthographic representations. For all samples, this initial learning was less effective with spelling than reading training trials. In reading text, the samples without explicit phonics did not compensate by trading off speed for accuracy, or comprehension. On the contrary, they read text faster than the explicit phonics samples. The extra classroom instruction time available to them for text reading, with the consequential extra exposure and practice of word reading, would explain this result.     

Morphological awareness, phonological awareness, and reading in English–Arabic bilingual children

The paper reported an exploratory study that tested (a) the relationship between phonological and morphological awareness in English (L1)–Arabic (L2) bilingual children in Canada (N = 43), and (b) the relevance of these skills to word and pseudoword reading accuracy, and to complex word reading fluency. The results showed a significant correlation between phonological awareness in English and in Arabic. However, morphological awareness in the two languages was not correlated. Phonological awareness predicted reading cross-linguistically, but only Arabic morphological awareness predicted word reading in English. Moreover, while both phonological and morphological awareness in English predicted independent unique variance in English word reading, only phonological awareness in Arabic predicted Arabic word reading. Complex-word reading fluency was predicted by morphological awareness within both languages. Similarly, in both languages, phonological awareness was the single factor predicting pseudoword decoding accuracy. The results are discussed in terms of cross-linguistic differences between English and Arabic in orthographic depth and in morphological structure and transparency.     

Do you see what I see? School perspectives of deaf children,hearing children and their parents☆

Perspectives on academic and social aspects of children’s school experiences were obtained from deaf and hearing children and their (deaf or hearing) parents. Possible differences between (1) the views of children and their parents and (2) those of hearing children and their parents compared to deaf children and their parents were of particular interest. Overall, parents gave their children higher school friendship ratings than the children gave themselves, and hearing children and their parents were more positive about children’s friendships than were deaf children and their parents. Both children and parents also saw deaf children as less successful in reading than hearing children. However, deaf children having deaf parents, attending a school for the deaf and using sign language at home all were associated with more positive perceptions of social success. Use of cochlear implants was not associated with perceptions of greater academic or social success. These and related findings are discussed in the context of parent and child perspectives on social and academic functioning and particular challenges confronted by deaf children in regular school settings.     

Do you see what I mean? Shared reference in non-native, early signing deaf children

A group of non-native, early signing deaf children between the ages of 7 and 11 years were tested on a referential communication task. A group of hearing children matched for sex and mental and chronological age were also included in the study. The aim was to study the deaf children's ability to take another persons perspective in a task that resembled a real-life communicative situation to a higher extent than the standard theory of mind (ToM) tasks. A further aim was to investigate the possible importance of a number of background variables such as mental and chronological age, working memory, and false-belief attribution. Results show that the hearing children outperformed the deaf children on the referential communication task and that results were highly correlated with both chronological and mental age, as well as with working memory. There was a positive, but not significant, correlation between false belief and success on the referential communication task. This is an indication that the two tasks tap different abilities and that false belief might be necessary, but not sufficient in order to be skilled in the art of referential communication. The possible role of working memory in the referential communication task is also discussed. The results support the hypothesis of the importance of early talk about mental states for the later development of ToM abilities.     

Do reading habits influence aesthetic preferences?

We tested the idea that the directionality of a person’s primary writing system has influences outside the domain of reading and writing, specifically influences on aesthetic preferences. The results of several previous studies suggest that people whose primary writing system goes from left to right prefer pictures of moving and static objects that face right over their mirror images that face left. People whose writing system goes from right to left, in several studies, prefer pictures that face left. We attempted to replicate these findings by testing Bahraini users of Arabic ranging from 2nd grade through 12th grade. Bahraini participants preferred right-facing pictures rather than those that faced in the direction of their writing system, and this preference was somewhat stronger in older students than in younger students. As expected, US fourth graders preferred right-facing pictures. There was no statistically significant difference between them and Bahraini fourth graders. Our results call into question the idea that the directionality of people’s primary writing system influences their preferences for pictures.     

Phonological specificity relates to phonological awareness and reading ability in English–French bilingual children

Reading and Writing - The 1-year longitudinal study presented here examined the extent to which the ability to build phonologically specific lexical entries as a result of increasing vocabulary...     

Is tobacco use a problem among deaf college students?

College students' tobacco use poses a significant public health problem. Effective intervention requires understanding of this behavior among race/ethnic, cultural, and linguistic collegiate subgroups, including deaf and hard of hearing collegians. Findings from a first-ever tobacco-related survey among this understudied population are reported. The authors used written questionnaires and the Interactive Video Questionnaire, a multimedia computer technology developed for use with the deaf and hard of hearing, to interview 241 volunteers on seven California college campuses. They found lower self-reported current smoking prevalence (14.5%) relative to collegians in the general population, but considerable ever smoking (65.1%) and multiple types of tobacco use (37.3%). The authors report on factors associated with tobacco use and on students' exposure to cigarette marketing, gaps experienced in receipt of antitobacco messages and services, and students' antitobacco intervention recommendations. Limitations of the research are described, including possible underreporting of participants' tobacco use.     

Are phonological processes the same or different in low literacy adults and children with or without reading disabilities?

The primary purpose of the study reported here was to examine whether phonological processes are the same or different in low literacy adults and children with or without reading disabilities in a consistent orthography. A sample of 150 subjects was selected and organized into four different groups: 53 low literacy adults, 29 reading disabled children, 27 younger normal readers at the same reading level as those with reading disabilities and low literacy adults, and 41 normal readers matched in age with the reading disabled group. We administered phonological awareness tasks which included items with different complexity of syllable structure. The results showed that the complexity of syllable structure had not a particularly marked effect on low literacy adults. Rather, the deletion task revealed the phonological deficit in low literacy adults across all syllable structures.     

Do Fourteenth Amendment considerations outweigh a potential state interest in mandating cochlear implantation for deaf children?

Currently, the decision concerning pediatric cochlear implantation for children remains a personal choice for parents to make. Economic factors, educational outcomes, and societal attitudes concerning deafness could result in an increased governmental interest in this choice. This article examines case law related to the issue of parental autonomy to determine whether the state, acting in the role of parens patriae, could use economic and social reasons to mandate the provision of cochlear implants for all eligible children. The author uses previous cases as a framework to develop an opinion on whether a constitutional protection for parents may exist.     

Synergetic effects of phonological awareness,vocabulary, and word reading on bilingual children’s reading comprehension: A three-year study

Using comparable measures of first language (L1) Chinese and second language (L2) English, this three-year longitudinal study examined the synergetic effects of phonological awareness, vocabulary, and word reading on reading comprehension development among 227 Hong Kong Chinese-English bilinguals from Grades 2-4. Structural equation growth modeling revealed that all three factors were significantly linked to one another and to initial reading comprehension for each language. Across languages, L1 Chinese vocabulary was directly linked to initial L2 English reading comprehension, while L1 Chinese phonological awareness was indirectly linked to initial L2 English reading comprehension via L2 English vocabulary and word reading. These findings underscore the synergetic effects of early phonological and lexical skills in determining early reading comprehension ability in both L1 and L2.     

Do teachers’ perceptions of children’s math and reading related ability and effort predict children’s self-concept of ability in math and reading?

This study investigated to what extent primary school teachers’ perceptions of their students’ ability and effort predict developmental changes in children’s self-concepts of ability in math and reading after controlling for students’ academic performance and general intelligence. Three cohorts (N?=?849) of elementary school children and their teachers were followed for four years. Children’s self-concepts and performance ability in math and reading were measured annually during Waves 2–4. Teachers rated the children’s ability and effort at each of the four waves. Domain-specific differences and developmental changes could be identified in the associations between teachers’ perceptions and children’s ability self-concepts. Teachers’ ability perceptions predicted children’s concurrent and subsequent ability self-concepts in math and reading, whereas teachers’ effort perceptions predicted children’s math ability self-concept only at Wave 4. Analyses with multi-sample procedure showed that these models were similar for boys and girls and for children in different cohort groups.     

How does phonological awareness relate to nonword reading skill amongst poor readers?

This study examined phonological awareness at the level of phonemes and rhyme and related this to nonword naming ability. Poor readers were compared with 11 year old chronological-age controls and 8 year old reading-age controls. The poor reader group was impaired for chronological age in all tasks, and impaired for reading age at nonword naming and phoneme deletion. The poor readers' rhyming skills, however, were commensurate with reading age. Individual variation was observed together with exceptions to the group findings; most poor readers performed within the range of the reading-age controls on the phonological tasks and in nonword naming. Dissociations in phonological skills were evident, including indications that intact awareness of rhyme may not be a prerequisite for the development of phoneme awareness. Furthermore, phoneme awareness correlated significantly with poor readers' word and nonword reading ability, whereas rhyming skill did not. Therefore, phoneme awareness may be more important than rhyming skill in understanding reading disorders.     

Are nonword and other phonological deficits indicative of a failed reading process?

Phonological processing problems have been consideredcritical in explaining developmental readingdisability. Reading disabled children were comparedwith two matched reading-level normal control groupson indicators of phonological processing. The readingdisabled children had lower nonword readingperformance than the phonics taught controls. However, performance was equivalent to that of thecontrols without phonics teaching. Therefore anonword reading deficit was not in itself diagnosticof developmental reading disability. The readingdisabled children and the non-phonics control groupwho exhibited lower nonword reading did not differfrom the phonics taught control group in phonemeawareness, nor in magnitude of the word regularityeffect. Nevertheless, within all groups thosechildren with higher phonemic awareness skills showedlarger word regularity effects and better nonwordreading. Processes involving two sources of knowledgefor phonological recoding are discussed asexplanations of these and many previous results onphonological deficits and of the phonological effectsof phonics instruction.     

Do deaf and hard of hearing youth need antitobacco education?

Little research has focused on tobacco use among deaf and hard of hearing youth. Findings are reported from a first-ever tobacco-related survey, completed by 226 California middle and high school students using either a written questionnaire or the Interactive Video Questionnaire, an interactive multimedia computer video technology. Rates for current smoking (3.1%), ever smoking (45.1%), and multiple types of tobacco use (10.6%) were found to be lower than among high school students generally; mainstreamed students were likelier to have ever tried smoking than their deaf school peers (57.8% vs. 31.8%). No statistically significant associations were found between ever smoking and race/ethnicity, gender, school performance, or prelingual vs. postlingual deafening; a quarter of the sample experienced occasional peer pressure to use tobacco products. Tobacco use covariates, exposure to cigarette marketing and antismoking programming, and tobacco education needs of deaf and hard of hearing youth are discussed.