Orthographic processing efficiency in developmental dyslexia: an investigation of age and treatment factors at the sublexical level

Socioeconomic dissociations in the neural and cognitive bases of reading disorders

Childhood socioeconomic status (SES) strongly predicts disparities in reading development, yet it is unknown whether early environments also moderate the cognitive and neurobiological bases of reading disorders (RD) such as dyslexia, the most prevalent learning disability. SES-diverse 6-9-year-old children (n = 155, half with RD) completed behavioral and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) tasks engaging phonological and orthographic processing, which revealed corresponding double-dissociations in neurocognitive deficits. At the higher end of the SES spectrum, RD was most strongly explained by differences in phonological skill and corresponding activation in left inferior frontal and temporoparietal regions during phonological processing-widely considered the "core deficit" of RD. However, at the lower end of the SES spectrum, RD was most strongly explained by differences in rapid naming skills and corresponding activation in left temporoparietal and fusiform regions during orthographic processing. Findings indicate that children's early environments systematically moderate the neurocognitive systems underlying RD, which has implications for assessment and treatment approaches to reduce SES disparities in RD outcomes. Further, results suggest that reliance on high-SES convenience samples may mask critical heterogeneity in the foundations of both typical and disordered reading development.

Effect of Story Structure Instruction Based on Visual Analysis on Reading Comprehension Intervention for Dyslexic Students

The application of artificial intelligence (AI) technology in the field of dyslexia is becoming increasingly abundant. However, the content of related literature shows that there is still a lack of systematic and comprehensive research in this field at home and abroad. By outlining the development of AI technology, the meaning, causes, and classification of learning disabilities, the most representative studies on the application of AI technology in dyslexia education, including four aspects of diagnosis, intervention, assessment, and services are analyzed. The study finds that AI technology can improve the conditions suffering from dyslexia and dysgraphia, and can serve the education of dyslexic children as a technical tool to overcome dyslexia. By summarizing the effect of story structure teaching based on visual analysis on reading comprehension intervention for students with dyslexia, it can provide useful references and references for related research.

The Interaction Between Morphological Awareness and Word Detection Skills in Predicting Speeded Passage Reading in Primary and Secondary School Chinese Readers

Previous studies suggest that morphological awareness (MA) and word detection skills have facilitating roles in reading fluency; however, it is unknown whether they can interplay with each other in such roles. The present study explored the relationships of MA, word detection, and passage reading fluency across ages. In total, 180 Chinese primary and secondary school students, aged from 8.52 to 15.67 years, completed tasks for these aforementioned capacities. After controlling gender, non-verbal intelligence, and reading ability at the word level, the results showed that the participants with higher scores for MA or word detection performed better in passage reading fluency. However, the predictive effect of word detection on reading fluency became weaker as the children became older. The interaction between MA and word detection was positive in younger children, whereas this interaction tended to be negative for older children. The results demonstrated a dynamic interplay between MA and word detection in contributing to passage reading fluency in Chinese children. While it has a positive interaction with word detection on reading fluency in younger children, MA may become a compensator in older children (e.g., over 14 years old) whose word detection skills are less effective in facilitating fluent reading.

Improving English reading fluency and comprehension for children with reading fluency disabilities

In the English language, students who read words accurately but have impairments in reading fluency are under-studied. The associated difficulties they have with comprehending text make it particularly important to delineate effective interventions for these students. Counter to suggestions that these readers need interventions focused on text reading, we examined the effects of a decoding-focused intervention. The intervention targeted decoding-related skills, including speeded training on sublexical spelling patterns. We examined the efficacy of this program for students with fluency-defined disabilities, and compared gains to those for students with accuracy-defined disabilities. In the initial phase of the program, readers with fluency-defined disabilities made greater gains in fluency, while readers with accuracy-defined disabilities made larger gains in word reading accuracy. The mean fluency score for readers with fluency-defined disabilities came within the average range across the intervention, as did reading comprehension for both groups. Readers' mastery on speeded learning of sublexical spelling patterns predicted unique variance in fluency outcomes, beyond variance accounted for by pre-test fluency and word reading accuracy. The results support intervention approaches focused on decoding-related skills for students who have fluency-defined disabilities and are consistent with theories of reading fluency that identify a role for automaticity with sublexical spelling patterns.

Poor reading is characterized by a more connected network with wrong hubs

Using graph theory, we examined topological organization of the language network in Chinese children with poor reading during an auditory rhyming task and a visual spelling task, compared to reading-matched controls and age-matched controls. First, poor readers (PR) showed reduced clustering coefficient in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and higher nodal efficiency in the bilateral superior temporal gyri (STG) during the visual task, indicating a less functionally specialized cluster around the left IFG and stronger functional links between bilateral STGs and other regions. Furthermore, PR adopted additional right-hemispheric hubs in both tasks, which may explain increased global efficiency across both tasks and lower normalized characteristic shortest path length in the visual task for the PR. These results underscore deficits in the left IFG during visual word processing and conform previous findings about compensation in the right hemisphere in children with poor reading.

Differences and Similarities in the Contributions of Phonological Awareness, Orthographic Knowledge and Semantic Competence to Reading Fluency in Chinese School-Age Children With and Without Hearing Loss

Compared with the large number of studies on reading of children with hearing loss (HL) in alphabetic languages, there are only a very limited number of studies on reading of Chinese-speaking children with HL. It remains unclear how phonological, orthographic, and semantic skills contribute to reading fluency of Chinese school-age children with HL. The present study explored this issue by examining the performances of children with HL on reading fluency and three linguistic skills compared with matched controls with normal hearing (NH). Specifically, twenty-eight children with HL and 28 chronological-age-matched children with NH were tested on word/sentence reading fluency (WRF/SRF), phonological awareness (PA) which was composed of onset/vowel/lexical tone awareness, orthographic knowledge (OK), and semantic competence (SC) which comprised animal word identification, pseudo-homophone detection, and word segmentation. Results showed that children with HL lagged behind their peers with NH in WRF/SRF and most of the phonological, orthographic, and semantic subskills except onset awareness and pseudo-homophone detection. Furthermore, the significant contributors to WRF differed between the two groups with PA being the significant contributor in the children with NH while OK being the significant contributor in the children with HL. However, the significant contributor to SRF did not differ between the two groups with SC being the only significant contributor. These results revealed not only between-group differences but also similarities in the relative contributions of PA, OK, and SC to reading fluency at both word and sentence levels, which has practical implications for developing better training programs to improve reading for children with HL.

Cognitive Correlates of Reading Fluency in Chinese School-Aged Children

Previous studies have showed that reading fluency is strongly associated with cognitive skills, including rapid automatized naming, phonological awareness, orthographical awareness, and so on. However, these studies are largely based on alphabetic languages, and it remains unclear which cognitive factors contribute to the development of reading fluency in logographic Chinese, a language in which the graphic forms map onto morphemes (meaning) rather than phonemes. In Study 1, we tested 179 Chinese children aged 6 to 9 on a set of cognitive tasks as well as for word reading accuracy and sentence reading fluency. The results showed that rapid naming, writing fluency, and phonological awareness significantly predicted reading fluency in both beginning and intermediate readers. In addition, while the contribution of rapid naming and writing fluency increased with grades, the effect of phonological awareness decreased. In Study 2, we examined the role of visual crowding in reading fluency in a subgroup of 86 children and found that visual crowding accounted for the unique variance of individual differences in reading fluency. The findings reflect both universal and language-specific cognitive correlates of reading fluency and provide important implications for potentially effective treatment for individuals suffering from Chinese reading disabilities, particularly in terms of reading fluency.

Reading comprehension in dyslexic schoolchildren after an intervention program

PURPOSE

To develop a Speech-language Pathology (SLP) program and verify its effects on the reading comprehension of dyslexic students.

METHODS

Participants were eleven 4th and 5th-grade Elementary School students, eight boys and three girls, aged 9-11 years, diagnosed with developmental dyslexia. All individuals underwent the therapeutic program, which was composed of 16 sessions divided into four levels of complexity. A text adapted according to the Cloze technique and reading comprehension and orthography tasks were used in each session. The schoolchildren had their reading comprehension assessed pre- and post-program using a text available at the Test of Reading Comprehension of Expository Texts, adapted for application of the structural Cloze technique without support, according to the Evaluation of Reading Comprehension Levels.

RESULTS

The participants showed better performance in reading comprehension at the post-program assessment not only in the filling of blanks in the text adapted according to the Cloze technique and in the Responses to Reading Comprehension Questions, but also in the level of reading comprehension achieved.

CONCLUSION

The SLP program improved the reading comprehension performance and increased motivation to reading of dyslexic schoolchildren. Both the Cloze technique and the Reading Comprehension Questions were useful tools to develop and identify changes in the reading comprehension of the students assessed. This study is relevant because it prepared and verified the effects of a specific remediation program for schoolchildren with dyslexia by proposing the use of texts adapted according to the Cloze technique combined with other various tasks of reading comprehension and orthography.

Programa fonoaudiológico em compreensão leitora e ortografia: efeitos na ortografia em disléxicos

RESUMO Objetivo Elaborar um Programa Fonoaudiológico em Compreensão Leitora e Ortografia e verificar seus efeitos na compreensão leitora e ortografia de escolares com Dislexia do Desenvolvimento. Método Participaram desta pesquisa onze indivíduos com diagnóstico de Dislexia do Desenvolvimento, com idades entre 9 e 11 anos, sendo oito meninos. Todos foram submetidos ao Programa Fonoaudiológico em Compreensão Leitora e Ortografia, composto por 16 sessões semanais individuais. Em cada sessão, foram desenvolvidas tarefas de compreensão leitora de textos e de ortografia. Antes do início e ao término do Programa, os participantes realizaram uma avaliação específica (pré e pós-teste). Resultados Os indivíduos apresentaram dificuldade na compreensão de textos, porém a técnica de Cloze foi um instrumento útil para a remediação da compreensão leitora, havendo melhora significativa no desempenho destes no pós-teste. Os disléxicos demonstraram um desempenho inferior à escolaridade em ortografia. Após o Programa, o desempenho deles evoluiu, porém permaneceu abaixo do esperado, ocorrendo o mesmo perfil de erros no pré e no pós-teste, com erros de ortografia natural e ortografia arbitrária. Conclusão O Programa Fonoaudiológico em Compreensão Leitora e Ortografia produz efeitos positivos na compreensão leitora, na ortografia e na motivação para a leitura e escrita dos participantes. Este estudo apresenta uma contribuição inédita, ao propor a estimulação conjunta da leitura e da escrita, por meio de um programa de fácil aplicabilidade e análise, em indivíduos com Dislexia do Desenvolvimento.

Reading-Related Causal Attributions for Success and Failure: Dynamic Links With Reading Skill

The present study investigated the relation among reading skills and attributions, naming speed, and phonological awareness across a wide range of reading skill. Participants were 1,105 school-age children and youths from two understudied populations: African Americans and Hispanic Americans. Individual assessments of children ranging in age from 8 to 15 years were conducted for reading outcomes, cognitive and linguistic predictors of reading, and attributions for success and failure in reading situations. Quantile regressions were formulated to estimate these relations across the full skill span of each outcome. Reading-related attributions predicted contextual word recognition, sight word and decoding fluency, and comprehension skills. Attributions to ability in success situations were positively related to each outcome across the full span. On three reading outcomes, this relation strengthened at higher skill levels. Attributions to effort in success situations were consistently and negatively related to all reading outcomes. The results provide evidence that the strength of the relation between reading and attributions varies according to reading skill levels, with the strongest evidence for ability-based attributions in situations of reading success.

Orthographic Reading Deficits in Dyslexic Japanese Children: Examining the Transposed-Letter Effect in the Color-Word Stroop Paradigm

In orthographic reading, the transposed-letter effect (TLE) is the perception of a transposed-letter position word such as “cholocate” as the correct word “chocolate.” Although previous studies on dyslexic children using alphabetic languages have reported such orthographic reading deficits, the extent of orthographic reading impairment in dyslexic Japanese children has remained unknown. This study examined the TLE in dyslexic Japanese children using the color-word Stroop paradigm comprising congruent and incongruent Japanese hiragana words with correct and transposed-letter positions. We found that typically developed children exhibited Stroop effects in Japanese hiragana words with both correct and transposed-letter positions, thus indicating the presence of TLE. In contrast, dyslexic children indicated Stroop effects in correct letter positions in Japanese words but not in transposed, which indicated an absence of the TLE. These results suggest that dyslexic Japanese children, similar to dyslexic children using alphabetic languages, may also have a problem with orthographic reading.

The brain adapts to orthography with experience: evidence from English and Chinese

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we examined the process of language specialization in the brain by comparing developmental changes in two contrastive orthographies: Chinese and English. In a visual word rhyming judgment task, we found a significant interaction between age and language in left inferior parietal lobule and left superior temporal gyrus, which was due to greater developmental increases in English than in Chinese. Moreover, we found that higher skill only in English children was correlated with greater activation in left inferior parietal lobule. These findings suggest that the regions associated with phonological processing are essential in English reading development. We also found greater developmental increases in English than in Chinese in left inferior temporal gyrus, suggesting refinement of this region for fine-grained word form recognition. In contrast, greater developmental increases in Chinese than in English were found in right middle occipital gyrus, suggesting the importance of holistic visual-orthographic analysis in Chinese reading acquisition. Our results suggest that the brain adapts to the special features of the orthography by engaging relevant brain regions to a greater degree over development.

Reading speed and phonological awareness deficits among Arabic-speaking children with dyslexia

Although reading accuracy of isolated words and phonological awareness represent the main criteria of subtyping developmental dyslexia, there is increasing evidence that reduced reading speed also represents a defining characteristic. In the present study, reading speed and accuracy were measured in Arabic-speaking phonological and mixed dyslexic children matched with controls of the same age. Participants in third and fourth grades, aged from 9-10 to 9-8 years, were given single frequent and infrequent word and pseudo-word reading and phonological awareness tasks. Results showed that the group with dyslexia scored significantly lower than controls in accuracy and speed in reading tasks. Phonological and mixed dyslexic subgroups differed in infrequent and frequent word reading accuracy, the latter being worse. In contrast, the subgroups were comparable in pseudo-word identification and phonological awareness. Delayed phonological and recognition processes of infrequent and frequent words, respectively, were placed in the context of the dual route model of reading and the specific orthographic features of the Arabic language.

Altered visual sensory fusion in children with reading difficulties

Reading is a multi-sensory and multi-cognitive task, and its difficulties (e.g., dyslexia) are not a unitary disorder. There are probably a variety of manifestations that relate to the actual site of impairment. A randomized, pre-test/post-test nonequivalent-groups design was conducted over 4 months with three groups aged between 6 and 8 years. One group comprised 76 participants (34 boys, 42 girls) with reading difficulties and altered sensory fusion (RD+ASF), a second group was made up of 123 students (59 boys, 64 girls) with reading difficulties but without altered sensory fusion (RD), and a third group comprised 81 participants (39 boys, 42 girls) who were young readers (RL) without reading delay, paired with the RD group on reading level. The experimental groups received intervention in the skills of control, stimulus recognition, and phonological awareness during a 4-month period. Both pre-test and post-test measures of errors in reading mechanics and reading routes (word and pseudo-word) were obtained. Poorer results in mechanics and reading routes of the RD+ASF group suggest that the effectiveness of the intervention depended on the characteristics of the groups and on the presence of sensory fusion deficits in the RD students.

Verbal and visuospatial working memory as predictors of children's reading ability

Children with reading difficulties often demonstrate weaknesses in working memory (WM). This research study explored the relation between two WM systems (verbal and visuospatial WM) and reading ability in a sample of school-aged children with a wide range of reading skills. Children (N = 157), ages 9-12, were administered measures of short-term memory, verbal WM, visuospatial WM, and reading measures (e.g., reading fluency and comprehension). Although results indicated that verbal WM was a stronger predictor in reading fluency and comprehension, visuospatial WM also significantly predicted reading skills, but provided more unique variance in reading comprehension than reading fluency. These findings suggest that visuospatial WM may play a significant role in higher level reading processes, particularly in reading comprehension, than previously thought.

Substituted-letter and transposed-letter effects in a masked priming paradigm with French developing readers and dyslexics

The aim of the study was to undertake a behavioral investigation of the development of automatic orthographic processing during reading acquisition in French. Following Castles and colleagues' 2007 study (Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 97, 165-182) and their lexical tuning hypothesis framework, substituted-letter and transposed-letter primes were used in a masked priming paradigm with third graders, fifth graders, adults, and phonological dyslexics matched on reading level with the third graders. No priming effect was found in third graders. In adults, only a transposed-letter priming effect was found; there was no substituted-letter priming effect. Finally, fifth graders and dyslexics showed both substituted-letter and transposed-letter priming effects. Priming effects between the two groups were of the same magnitude after response time (RT) z-score transformation. Taken together, our results show that the pattern of priming effects found by Castles and colleagues in English normal readers emerges later in French normal readers. In other words, language orthographies seem to constrain the tuning of the orthographic system, with an opaque orthography producing faster tuning of orthographic processing than more transparent orthographies because of the high level of reliance on phonological decoding while learning to read.

The Emerging, Evolving Reading Brain in a Digital Culture: Implications for New Readers, Children With Reading Difficulties, and Children Without Schools

The recent rise of electronic media, and the move away from traditional reading and reading, are leading to a fundamental shift in the way in which the human brain processes information. This shift in patterns of human cognition has separate implications for new readers, individuals with reading disabilities, and children without access to schools. While this evolving method of reading may threaten the development of deep reading skills in new readers, it also promises to provide unprecedented access to information and instruction for children without access to formal schooling.