Contributions of Basic Cognitive Processing to Chinese Reading: The Mediation Effect of Basic Language Processing

Phonological awareness and RAN contribute to Chinese reading and arithmetic for different reasons

The present study investigated how phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming (hereafter, RAN), simultaneously contributed to Chinese reading and arithmetic fluency. Specifically, we proposed a new hypothesized mechanism that processing speed would mediate the relations of RAN with Chinese reading and arithmetic fluency. One hundred and forty-five Chinese children at the fifth grade were administered with a battery of measures, including three phonological processing measures, character reading, and whole number computation, as well as nonverbal IQ, and vocabulary knowledge. Path analyses revealed that phonological awareness and RAN were uniquely related to character reading and arithmetic fluency, while phonological memory was not significantly correlated to either character reading or arithmetic fluency, after controlling for age, nonverbal IQ, and vocabulary knowledge. Further analysis indicated that processing speed demonstrated a mediating effect on the importance of RAN in character reading, rather than in arithmetic fluency. Results underscore the potential importance of phonological awareness and RAN in character reading and arithmetic fluency, and the mediating role of processing speed in RAN to promote Chinese character reading fluency.

The Reliability and Validity of an Assessment Tool for Developmental Dyslexia in Chinese Children

Developmental dyslexia (DD) is a common neurobehavioral disorder in children. It refers to the phenomenon in which children with normal intelligence lag significantly behind their peers in reading ability. In China, there is no unified standard for the assessment of dyslexia due to the use of simplified and traditional Chinese characters in different regions. This study was aimed at analyzing the reliability and validity of the self-developed Chinese dyslexia assessment tool named Chinese Reading Ability Test (CRAT), which was suitable for students of grade 3 to 5 in primary school. We randomly selected three primary schools in Shantou city of China, including two in the central district and one in the surrounding district. A total of 1492 students of grades 3 through 5 were recruited. We assessed the reliability of CRAT by test-retest reliability and internal consistency. The validity assessment was realized by discriminant validity, content validity and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). For reliability, the test-retest correlation coefficient of the total score of the CRAT was 0.671. The difference between the test-retest was not statistically significant. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient of the CRAT was 0.75. For validity, the correlation coefficient between the score of each subscale and the total score of the scale ranged from 0.29 to 0.73. The indexes of the three structural equation models all meet the standard (p > 0.05, χ²/df < 2.00, RMSEA < 0.05, GFI > 0.90, AGFI > 0.90, NFI > 0.90, CFI > 0.90 and IFI > 0.90). The fitting effects of the models were good. The CRAT has sufficient reliability and validity which could be used for the assessment and auxiliary diagnosis of Chinese Dyslexia in primary school students of grade 3 to 5.