Can dyslexia be treated? Treatment-specific and generalized treatment effects in dyslexic children's response to remediation

A total of 178 reading disabled children were randomly assigned to one of three treatment conditions providing training in word recognition and decoding skills (DS), oral and written language (OWLS), or classroom survival skills (CSS. an alternative treatment control). Pre- and post-treatment comparisons on an array of standardized and experimental measures indicated that the two experimental treatments (DS, OWLS) resulted in improvement on selected tests significantly greater than that resulting from a third treatment intervention which controlled for treatment time and individual attention (CSS). Effects specific to each experimental treatment were identified, as well as some generalized treatment advantages shared by both experimental groups at post-test. These results indicate that some of the deficits associated with developmental dyslexia are amenable to treatment. Greater generalization of treatment effects was observed following the DS than the OWLS treatment. While DS-instructed children exhibited better word recognition skills, however, their knowledge of grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules was not improved. Several OWLS-specific effects observed on experimental reading and language measures were not replicated on standardized tests which purport to measure the same skills. These results are discussed with respect to (i) possible mechanisms by which disabled readers may acquire word recognition skills, (ii) their failure to acquire and use grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules, and (iii) a possible reduced tendency in the present population to generalize newly acquired specific knowledge to related knowledge domains.     

WORD RECOGNITION SKILLS OF LEARNING DISABLED CHILDREN AND AVERAGE STUDENTS’

Abstract

The ability of learning disabled and average students’ to recognize and identify words was investigated. Two informal reading measures, the Sundbye Minimal Contrast Phonics Test and an oral reading sample, were administered to three groups. The groups were composed of learning disabled students evidencing reading problems (LD), average students matched with the learning disabled group on reading level and IQ (YN), and average students matched with the learning disabled group on chronological age and IQ (ON). The LD group and average readers did not differ on identification of symbol‐sound associations, word recognition proficiency, the ability to detect and correct word recognition errors, and the ability to use information within the text to recognize words. However, the LD and ON group differed on mean number of word recognition errors. Educational implications of the findings were discussed and a profile of the word recognition skills of learning disabled children was presented.     

The effects of word class on children's reading and spelling

Children's oral language functioning has been shown to be affected by word class (i.e., content vs. noncontent words). The present study reveals comparable effects on children's written language performance. In spelling and reading, third and fifth graders show faster and more accurate responses to nouns and verbs than to noncontent words of matched length and frequency. Further, when the children's performance is examined in relation to level of reading skill, it is found that the less-skilled readers exhibit a greater content/noncontent differential than do the more skilled readers. The results are discussed with reference to differential access for the two word classes and its implication for both oral and written language functioning.     

Is a "Phoenician" reading style superior to a "Chinese" reading style? Evidence from fourth graders

This study compared normally achieving fourth-grade "Phoenician" readers, who identify nonwords significantly more accurately than they do exception words, with "Chinese" readers, who show the reverse pattern. Phoenician readers scored lower than Chinese readers on word identification, exception word reading, orthographic choice, spelling, reading comprehension, and verbal ability. When compared with normally achieving children who read nonwords and exception words equally well, Chinese readers scored as well as these children on word identification, regular word reading, orthographic choice, spelling, reading comprehension, phonological sensitivity, and verbal ability and scored better on exception word reading. Chinese readers also used rhyme-based analogies to read nonwords derived from high-frequency exception words just as often as did these children. As predicted, Phoenician and Chinese readers adopted somewhat different strategies in reading ambiguous nonwords constructed by analogy to high-frequency exception words. Phoenician readers were more likely than Chinese readers to read ambiguous monosyllabic nonwords via context-free grapheme-phoneme correspondences and were less likely to read disyllabic nonwords by analogy to high-frequency analogues. Although the Chinese reading style was more common than the Phoenician style in normally achieving fourth graders, there were similar numbers of poor readers with phonological dyslexia (identifying nonwords significantly more accurately than exception words) and surface dyslexia (showing the reverse pattern), although surface dyslexia was more common in the severely disabled readers. However, few of the poor readers showed pure patterns of phonological or surface dyslexia.     

Cerebral lateralization and reading dysfunction

The laterality preference patterns and types of oral reading errors were examined for 90 seventh-grade males. Specifically, scores on a self-report measure of lateral preference for 30 readers with adequate decoding skills but low comprehension and 30 readers who lacked decoding skills were compared with each other and with 30 good readers. As predicted, poor readers with grade appropriate word recognition scores were found to be generally more confused in their lateral preference than were good readers or poor readers who lacked decoding skills. Results of oral reading errors confirmed a visual integration problem for the more bilateral reader. Poor comprehenders with word recognition skills also reported significantly greater mixed lateral patterns for their fathers than did other readers. The results were interpreted as supporting the initial argument that difference-poor readers fail to comprehend because of problems in organizing visual input, which seems intimately tied to a bilateralization of functions.     

A developmental perspective on reading dysfunction: Accuracy and rate criteria in the subtyping of dyslexic children

Children referred with specific reading dysfunction were subtyped as accuracy disabled or rate disabled according to criteria developed from an information processing model of reading skill. Multiple measures of oral and written language development were compared for two subtyped samples matched on age, sex, and IQ. The two samples were comparable in reading fluency, reading comprehension, word knowledge, and word retrieval functions. Accuracy disabled readers demonstrated inferior decoding and spelling skills. The accuracy disabled sample proved deficient in their understanding of oral language structure and in their ability to associate unfamiliar pseudowords and novel symbols in a task designed to simulate some of the learning involved in initial reading acquisition. It was suggested that these two samples of disabled readers may be best described with respect to their relative standing along a theoretical continuum of normal reading development.     

Maîtrise de l’oral et de l’écrit en français et en tahitien : une étude longitudinale du CP au CM2 en Polynésie française

Many international scientific studies underline the advantage of bilingual children in oral language. This is especially evident in their meta-linguistic skills, as well as their writing, reading and written expression. Bilingualism could facilitate meta-linguistic development by allowing the child to differentiate early formal and semantic aspects of the code, perceive the arbitrary relationship between “ signified ” and “ significant ” and develop greater cognitive flexibility. This study, conducted in French Polynesia, had examined the specific effect of bilingual program on the morphological awareness and the cross-lingual effects of Tahitian-French transfers via the written word. A group of 128 Polynesian students were followed longitudinally from the end of First Grade to the end of Fifth Grade. Of these 128 students, 59 were part of an experimental group involved beginning in the First Grade, in two successive educational programs with five hours per week of Polynesian language and culture, which included systematic learning of reading and writing in Tahitian. A selection of 69 other students, who had never participated in these programs, constituted the control group. All students were tested each year on their oral language skills in French and Tahitian. At the end of Third Grade, a morphological awareness assessment in French was introduced (Reder et al., 2013), as well as a task of word recognition (TIME3 of Ecalle, 2006), a reading-comprehension (Lobrot, 1980) and spelling tasks (ECS3, Khomsi, 1998). These standardized assessments have been adapted in Tahitian. The first results acknowledged a positive effect of the bilingual education curriculum on Tahitian oral skills and on cross-lingual links between written skills and morphological awareness. In addition, the Tahitian word recognition greatly helped to explain the French written skills, after controlling the level of French morphological awareness.     

Reading instruction and remediation with the aid of computer speech

In this paper, we describe the application of new computer and speech synthesis technologies for reading instruction. Stories are presented on the computer screen, and readers may designate words or parts of words that they cannot read for immediate speech feedback. The important contingency between speech sounds and their corresponding letter patterns is emphasized by displaying the letter patterns in reverse video as they are spoken. Speech feedback is provided by an advanced text-to-speech synthesizer (DECtalk). Intelligibility data are presented, showing that DECtalk can be understood almost as well as natural human speech by both normal adults and reading disabled children. Preliminary data from 26 disabled readers indicate that there are significant benefits of speech feedback for reading comprehension and word recognition, and that children enjoy reading with the system.     

Functional neuroimaging studies of reading and reading disability (developmental dyslexia)

Converging evidence from a number of neuroimaging studies, including our own, suggest that fluent word identification in reading is related to the functional integrity of two consolidated left hemisphere (LH) posterior systems: a dorsal (temporo-parietal) circuit and a ventral (occipito-temporal) circuit. This posterior system is functionally disrupted in developmental dyslexia. Reading disabled readers, relative to nonimpaired readers, demonstrate heightened reliance on both inferior frontal and right hemisphere posterior regions, presumably in compensation for the LH posterior difficulties. We propose a neurobiological account suggesting that for normally developing readers the dorsal circuit predominates at first, and is associated with analytic processing necessary for learning to integrate orthographic features with phonological and lexical-semantic features of printed words. The ventral circuit constitutes a fast, late-developing, word identification system which underlies fluent word recognition in skilled readers.     

Semantic predictability eliminates the transposed-letter effect

Semantic predictability facilitates word recognition during language processing. One possible explanation for this facilitation is that highly specific predictions generated online during language processing preactivate some features of upcoming words. To explore whether, how, and when these predictions affect visual word recognition, in the two experiments reported here we investigated the influence of semantic predictability on transposed-letter priming. In order to do so, a paradigm that combines self-paced word-by-word reading with masked priming was developed. Transposed-letter priming occurred in nonconstraining contexts but not in constraining contexts, indicating that readers use context to make predictions about both letter identity and position in upcoming words, and that these predictions have an early influence on visual word recognition.     

Getting ready for reading: A follow‐up study of inner city second language learners at the end of Key Stage 1

Background: A previous study (Stuart, 1999) showed that early phoneme awareness and phonics teaching improved reading and spelling ability in inner‐city schoolchildren in Key Stage 1, most of whom were learning English as a second language. Aims: The present study, a follow‐up of these children at the end of Key Stage 1, addresses four main questions: (1) Are these improvements maintained to the end of Key Stage 1? (2) Are different patterns of cognitive process evident in the word recognition skills of phonics trained versus untrained children? (3) Do the phonics trained children now also show a significant advantage in reading comprehension? (4) Are there differences in amount of reading, in self‐concept as readers and in oral vocabulary development between phonics trained and untrained children? Relationships between reading and spelling ages and Key Stage 1 SATs levels are also explored. Sample: Data are reported from 101 seven‐year‐olds (85 of whom were second language learners) remaining from the original 112 children reported on previously. Method: Children were tested on four standardized tests of reading, spelling and vocabulary, and on a further six experimental tests of phoneme segmentation, grapheme‐phoneme correspondence knowledge, regular, exception and nonword reading, author recognition and reading self‐concept. Results: Lasting influences of early phoneme awareness and phonics teaching on phoneme awareness, grapheme‐phoneme correspondence knowledge, word reading and spelling were found. Part of the previously untrained group had now received structured phonics teaching, and were therefore treated as a third (late trained) group. Early and late‐trained groups showed similar levels of attainment and similar cognitive processing patterns, which were different from the untrained group. However, there were no influences of training on reading comprehension, self‐concept or oral vocabulary. Conclusions: Early phoneme awareness and phonics training efficiently accelerates the word recognition and spelling skills of first and second language learners alike. However, this is not sufficient to bootstrap the development of language comprehension in the second language learners. Further research is needed into the kinds of language teaching that will best develop their oral and written language comprehension.     

Relationship between levels of oral and written language in beginning readers

The validity of a test battery, organized by a theoretical framework of levels of language processing and production, was evaluated at the end of kindergarten and theend of first grade. At the end of kindergarten two levels of oral language, phonemic and lexical, and at the end of first grade three levels of oral language, phonemic, lexical, and text, were correlated with word decoding and reading comprehension. At the end of first grade, the combination of phonemic and lexical skills accounted for more variance in both word decoding and reading comprehension than either phonemic or lexical skills alone. The strength of the relationship between specific levels of oral language and specific component reading skills changed after formal reading instruction was introduced. Functional relationships were found between improvement in phonemic skills or lexical skills and improvement in word decoding. Partial correlations between two levels of oral language with a third partialed out (receptive or expressive task requirements held constant) provided evidence for three semiindependent levels of oral language—phonemic, lexical, and text. Because the battery has concurrent and construct validity, school psychologists can use it to monitor beginning readers in order to prevent reading disabilities due to subtle language dysfunctions.     

Reading, spelling, and recognition of briefly exposed words and nonwords.

Four groups distinct in terms of English reading comprehension and spelling skills were identified among 141 Japanese college students: 5 good readers and spellers, 6 good readers but poor spellers, 3 poor readers but good spellers, and 4 poor readers and poor spellers. They were then tested on instantaneous recognition of words and nonwords. Analysis showed that the recognition performance was more strongly associated with spelling than with reading comprehension. Immediate memory and "sophisticated" guessing, which were associated with spelling, were considered to be critical for the recognition task, but the hypothesis that a common processing mechanism is involved in instantaneous word recognition and spelling was rejected.     

Sentential structure and the perceptual spans of two samples of disabled readers

The constructs of accuracy and speed were adopted as performance criteria against which to define two clinical samples of disabled readers. Accuracy-disabled subjects had failed to achieve reliable age-appropriate word recognition skills. Rate-disabled readers were age-appropriate in word recognition accuracy but deficient on measures of contextual accuracy and reading speed. When their eye-voice spans were measured under different text manipulations, accuracy-disabled and rate-disabled children differed in the magnitude of their perceptual spans during the act of reading. The two samples did not differ in the extent to which they availed themselves of contextual constraints to extend their spans in the reading of connected text. Both samples of disabled readers appeared able to use syntactic information as an independent source of sentential information in reading, even the sample whose reading disability was associated with oral syntax deficits. Comparisons with a previous sample of normal beginning readers suggested both types of disabled readers to be reading with perceptual spans of reduced dimensions.This research was supported by operating funds from the Medical Research Council of Canada, the Ontario Mental Health Foundation/COMSOC Provincial Lottery Grants Program, and The Hospital for Sick Children Foundation. The author gratefully acknowledges the generous contributions of Terry Smialy and Judy Millington in assisting with all phases of data collection and data analysis. Special thanks are due Judy Millington for her skill in computing and analyzing the phrase boundary and pseudoboundary counts. Identification of the present rate-disabled subjects was made possible through the assistance of Andrew Biemiller, Donald G. Doehring, and Roger T. Lennon, who made previously unpublished normative data on reading speed available for use in this research project. The generosity of these individuals is very gratefully acknowledged. This paper was presented in part to the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Anaheim, California, August 1983.     

Eye movements,word familiarity,and vocabulary acquisition

Two experiments examined the effects of word familiarity on word recognition and text comprehension during silent reading. Readers' eye movements were monitored as they read sentences containing words that varied in familiarity as assessed by printed estimates of word frequency, subjective ratings of familiarity, and a multiple‐choice test of meaning knowledge. Effects of word frequency were unaffected by differences in subjective familiarity rating for high frequency words. Differential effects of familiarity rating were observed in low frequency conditions. In addition, processing time on high and low frequency words did not differ when familiarity was held constant for moderately familiar words. Readers spent more initial processing time on novel words than familiar words. Performance on a vocabulary test administered after the reading session demonstrated that readers successfully acquired and retained new word meanings. Finally, reanalysis of word processing time as a function of vocabulary test performance demonstrated a systematic relationship between online processing patterns and memory for novel word meaning.     

Children's Immediate Understanding OF Vocabulary: Contexts and Dictionary Definitions

This study investigates children's ability to utilize context cues (forward or backward), dictionary definitions (original or revised), or combinations of the two to understand unfamiliar words. Significant word gains were found for all treatments and reading skill levels. Revised definitions produced significantly greater gains than forward context cues, backward context cues, and original definitions. Combined treatments produced significantly greater gains than backward context cues. Advanced readers demonstrated significantly greater gains than average or below-average readers. Implications for reading research and instruction are forwarded and the construct of Immediate Understanding is defined and explored.     

From "logographic" to normal reading: the case of a deaf beginning reader

Visual word recognition of a profoundly deaf girl (AH) with developmental reading disorders was explored using an experimental technique that measures performance as a function of eye fixation within a word. AH's fixation-dependent word recognition profile revealed that she was inferring the identity of words using a "logographic" reading strategy (i. e., using salient visual features). Following this observation a special training program that enhances the understanding of grapheme-phoneme relations was applied. After few months of training, AH's reading skills improved, while her fixation-dependent performance changed to become like that of normal readers. We discuss the impact of our technique for the early diagnosis of reading impairments.     

Information processing in reading-disabled and nondisabled children

Reading disabled and nondisabled children (13-14 years of age) were presented lists of 10 words each at different rates (one word per 1, 2, and 4 sec), and immediately after the last word of each list they recalled the words in any order. Recall of the first few words presented from each list (the primacy effect) was lower in reading-disabled than nondisabled children, and slower presentation rates increased the primacy effect in both groups. These findings suggest that reading-disabled children are not completely failing to use elaborative encoding but are using less effective elaborative encoding than nondisabled readers. With all presentation rates, recall of the last few words (the recency effect) was comparable in both groups, suggesting that older reading-disabled children encode and recognize the stimuli and that elaborative encoding is deficient in reading-disabled in spite of adequate stimulus encoding and recognition.     

Developmental dyslexia and word retrieval deficits

Developmental dyslexics, selected on the basis of very slow naming rates on the Rapid Automatic Naming Tasks (RAN), were compared to normal readers on oral language, picture categorization, and reading tasks. Findings indicated that the dyslexics' word retrieval deficits were one symptom of a more generalized, however subtle, oral language deficit which involved both receptive and expressive oral language functioning. The dyslexics' word retrieval problem also seemed chiefly related to language processing and not to deficits in semantic memory as there were no significant differences between dyslexics and controls on a nonverbal semantic memory task (picture categorization). In naming and identifying printed words, the dyslexics appeared to rely considerably upon the "indirect" or "assembly-of-phonology" route; they were slower in naming irregularly spelled words compared to regularly spelled words and on a lexical decision task, the dyslexics were slower in making negative decisions for "pseudohomophones" (e.g., "braik") than for other matched nonwords. Results are discussed in terms of the logogen model with some consideration of a developmental model as well.     

Using talking computers to remediate reading and spelling disabilities: The critical role of the print-to-sound unit

Talking computers employing computer-generated speech feedback have been used to remediate the literacy skills of dyslexic readers. A computer program is described that employs DECtalk, a highlevel speech synthesizer, to narrate instruction involving intensive training in identifying whole words or in identifying and blending word segments corresponding to onsets, rimes, and phonemes. Procedures for developing individualized instruction are described as well as for constructing and editing the speech and graphics features of the program. Neurologically impaired dyslexic children trained with this program achieved greater acquisition and transfer of word recognition skill when their training involved segmented rather than whole word feedback.