Multilingualism and dyslexia: challenges for research and practice

Remote Dyslexia Screening for Bilingual Children

Ideally, language and reading skills in bilingual children are assessed in both languages spoken in order to avoid misdiagnoses of communication or learning disorders. Due to limited capacity of clinical and educational staff, computerized screenings that allow for automatic evaluation of the children’s performance on reading tasks (accuracy and speed) might pose a useful alternative in clinical and school settings. In this study, a novel web-based screening platform for language and reading assessment is presented. This tool has been preliminarily validated with monolingual Italian, Mandarin–Italian and English–Italian speaking primary school children living and schooled in Italy. Their performances in the screening tasks in Italian and—if bilingual—in their native language were compared to the results of standardized/conventional reading assessment tests as well as parental and teacher questionnaires. Correlations revealed the tasks that best contributed to the identification of risk for the presence of reading disorders and showed the general feasibility and usefulness of the computerized screening. In a further step, both screening administrators (Examiners) and child participants (Examinees) were invited to participate in usability studies, which revealed general satisfaction and provided suggestions for further improvement of the screening platform. Based on these findings, the potential of the novel web-based screening platform is discussed.

Bias in dyslexia screening in a Dutch multicultural population

We set out to address the adequacy of dyslexia screening in Dutch and non-western immigrant children, using the Dutch Dyslexia Screening Test (DST-NL) and outcomes of the Dutch dyslexia protocol, both of which are susceptible to cultural bias. Using the protocol as standard, we conducted an ROC (Receiver Operating Characteristics) analysis in Dutch and immigrant third, fifth, and seventh graders, combining a cross-sectional and longitudinal design. Sensitivity and specificity increased with grade, but were non-significant for various subtests in the lowest grade, suggesting considerable non-convergence between the two measures. Effective subtests in all grades, presumably not strongly influenced by Cultural Background or Word Lexicon, were One-Minute Reading, Non-Word Reading, and Nonsense Passage Reading. In a multilevel analysis, cultural background, dyslexia diagnosis, parental education, and grade of first assessment were predictors of subtest performance. In a second analysis, Word Lexicon was added as a proxy of knowledge of the Dutch language and culture. After controlling for Word Lexicon, cultural background became significant for most subtests, suggesting the presence of cultural bias. Subtests assessing technical literacy, such as One-Minute-Reading, Non-Word-Reading, One-Minute-Writing, or Two-Minutes-Spelling, showed more convergence between the two assessments. Less-effective subtests were Naming Pictures, Backward Digit Span, and Verbal and Semantic Fluency. It is concluded that the DST-NL and the standard protocol do not show complete convergence, notably in the lower grades in the multilingual pupil group of our cohort, mainly because dyslexia and literacy difficulties are hard to disentangle.

Differences in neurocognitive aspects of dyslexia in Dutch and immigrant 6-7- and 8-9-years old children

Detecting dyslexia in immigrant children can be jeopardized because of assessment bias, as a consequence of a limited word lexicon or differences in language development of these children. This is in contrast with the view of the universal neurocognitive basis for dyslexia. In this research, differences in screening children at risk for dyslexia with the Dyslexia Screening Test (DST) were studied in third and fifth graders of primary school of Dutch (mainstream) and immigrant descent. Mean group differences were found on a few subtests (Naming Letters, Semantic Fluency, Backward Digit Span and Verbal Fluency), probably as a consequence of bias because of the linguistic character of these subtests. The raw scores of word lexicon increased in the Dutch and immigrant group. The association of having a dyslexia diagnosis on DST scores was comparable for Dutch and immigrant children. Differences in the DST scores between non-dyslexic and dyslexic children were found between the third and fifth grade, with a stronger effect of having a dyslexia diagnosis in the fifth grade than the third grade, for Dutch as well as immigrant children. Screening of dyslexia seems easier in the fifth grade than in the third grade, dyslexic children show a slower reading development than their non-dyslexic peers, irrespective of their cultural background.

The impacts of language background and language-related disorders in auditory processing assessment

PURPOSE

To examine the impact of language background and language-related disorders (LRDs--dyslexia and/or language impairment) on performance in English speech and nonspeech tests of auditory processing (AP) commonly used in the clinic.

METHOD

A clinical database concerning 133 multilingual children (mostly with English as an additional language) and 71 monolingual children (7- to 12-year-old native English speakers) with listening concerns was analyzed retrospectively.

RESULTS

Language background had no significant effect on the 3 nonspeech AP tests, but the multilingual group performed worse in most of the speech tests. Children with LRDs generally performed more poorly than those without, except for the masking level difference.

CONCLUSIONS

Although language background affects performance in AP tasks that use speech, the effect of LRDs appears to be more wide-ranging insofar as the majority of the AP tests--speech and nonspeech--were significantly affected by their presence. The effects of language background are probably mediated directly through the effects of language expertise, whereas those associated with LRDs appear to arise from associated deficits in memory and attention. The vast majority of so-called AP tests tap abilities far beyond those typically thought of as specifically auditory; thus, they are poor measures of an AP disorder.

Second language learning difficulties in Chinese children with dyslexia: what are the reading-related cognitive skills that contribute to English and Chinese word reading?

This study examined the relations between reading-related cognitive skills and word reading development of Chinese children with dyslexia in their Chinese language (L1) and in English (L2). A total of 84 bilingual children-28 with dyslexia, 28 chronological age (CA) controls, and 28 reading-level (RL) controls-participated and were administered measures of word reading, rapid naming, visual-orthographic skills, and phonological and morphological awareness in both L1 and L2. Children with dyslexia showed weaker performance than CA controls in both languages and had more difficulties in phonological awareness in English but not in Chinese. In addition, reading-related cognitive skills in Chinese contributed significantly to the ability to read English words, suggesting cross-linguistic transfer from L1 to L2. Results found evidence for different phonological units of awareness related to the characteristics of the different languages being learned, supporting the psycholinguistic grain size and linguistic coding differences hypotheses.