Annals of Dyslexia最新文献

Resilient readers comprehend written language despite word reading deficits. The reading resiliency framework specifies candidate protective factors hypothesized to mitigate adverse effects on reading comprehension arising from phonological decoding deficiencies and, consequently, illuminates how some individuals exhibit relative reading resiliency. A focus on relative reading resiliency involves an examination of individual strengths and weaknesses because areas of relative strength can bolster one’s abilities. The ability for morphological awareness and vocabulary to be strengths or protective factors contributing to reading resiliency was explored in a sample of university students. Morphological awareness is predicted to be a particularly important skill for university students due to the complexity of texts encountered in their coursework. A measure of word-level morphological awareness was positively associated with relative reading resiliency. Furthermore, across norm-referenced and standardized high-stakes testing measures of reading comprehension, vocabulary mediated the impact of morphological awareness on comprehension after controlling for phonological decoding ability. These findings suggest that morphological awareness and vocabulary skills are important contributing factors to reading comprehension and reading resilience.

The purpose of this study was to investigate New Jersey educators’ dyslexia knowledge and misconceptions, professional development perceptions and needs, and perceived preparedness regarding teaching students with dyslexia. A second purpose was to investigate what factors predicted New Jersey educators’ knowledge about dyslexia. A total of 705 in-service educators completed a survey about their dyslexia knowledge, perceived preparedness, and professional development perceptions. Participants had accurate overall knowledge about dyslexia, but some prevailing misconceptions were still present. The greatest predictor of dyslexia knowledge was years of experience in working with students with dyslexia. Reading specialists, educators with greater perceived preparedness and those educators who had training in multi-sensory approaches to instruction had significantly more dyslexia knowledge than other educators. Approximately half of the participants felt prepared to teach students with dyslexia and that working with students with dyslexia prepared them the most. Participants perceived that multi-sensory approaches were the most effective professional development and their undergraduate education was the least effective. Most participants were in support of further professional development on the topic of dyslexia. Implications for in-service educators’ professional development and future research directions are discussed.

What role does the presence of facial speech play for children with dyslexia? Current literature proposes two distinctive claims. One claim states that children with dyslexia make less use of visual information from the mouth during speech processing due to a deficit in recruitment of audiovisual areas. An opposing claim suggests that children with dyslexia are in fact reliant on such information in order to compensate for auditory/phonological impairments. The current paper aims at directly testing these contrasting hypotheses (here referred to as “mouth insensitivity” versus “mouth reliance”) in school-age children with and without dyslexia, matched on age and listening comprehension. Using eye tracking, in Study 1, we examined how children look at the mouth across conditions varying in speech processing demands. The results did not indicate significant group differences in looking at the mouth. However, correlation analyses suggest potentially important distinctions within the dyslexia group: those children with dyslexia who are better readers attended more to the mouth while presented with a person’s face in a phonologically demanding condition. In Study 2, we examined whether the presence of facial speech cues is functionally beneficial when a child is encoding written words. The results indicated lack of overall group differences on the task, although those with less severe reading problems in the dyslexia group were more accurate when reading words that were presented with articulatory facial speech cues. Collectively, our results suggest that children with dyslexia differ in their “mouth reliance” versus “mouth insensitivity,” a profile that seems to be related to the severity of their reading problems.

Many individuals with poor reading comprehension have levels of reading comprehension that are consistent with deficits in their ability to decode the words on the page. However, there are individuals who are poor at reading comprehension despite being adequate at decoding. This phenomenon is referred to as specific reading comprehension deficit (SRCD). The two purposes of this study were to use a new approach to estimate the prevalence of SRCD and to examine the extent to which SRCD can be explained by the simple view of reading. We used model-based meta-analysis of correlation matrices from standardized tests to create composite correlation matrices for the constructs of reading comprehension, decoding, and listening comprehension. Using simulated datasets generated from the composite correlation matrices, we used residuals from regressing reading comprehension on decoding to create a continuous index of SRCD. The prevalence of SRCD is best represented not as a single number but as a continuous distribution in which prevalence varies as a function of the magnitude of the severity of the deficit in reading comprehension relative to the level of decoding. Examining the joint distribution of the residuals with reading comprehension makes clear that the phenomenon of reading comprehension that is poor relative to decoding occurs throughout the distribution of reading comprehension skill. Although the simple view of reading predictors of listening comprehension and decoding makes significant contributions to predicting reading comprehension, nearly half of the variance is unaccounted for.

Cross-cultural studies have suggested that reading deficits in developmental dyslexia (DD) can be moderated by orthographic depth. To further explore this issue and assess the moderating role of orthographic depth in the developmental cognitive trajectories of dyslexic and typical readers, we systematically reviewed 113 studies on DD that were published from 2013 to 2018 and selected 79 in which participants received an official DD diagnosis. Each study was classified according to orthographic depth (deep vs. shallow) and participant age (children vs. adults). We assessed the difference between DD and control groups’ performance in reading tasks and in a wide range of cognitive domains associated with reading (phonological awareness (PA), rapid automatized naming (RAN), short-term working memory (WM), and nonverbal reasoning), including age and orthographies as moderators. We found an age-by-orthography interaction effect in word reading accuracy and a significant effect of age in pseudoword reading accuracy, but we found no effect of age and orthographic depth on the fluency parameters. These results suggest that reading speed is a reliable index for discriminating between DD and control groups across European orthographies from childhood to adulthood. A similar pattern of results emerged for PA, RAN, and short-term/WM. Our findings are discussed in relation to their impact on clinical practice while considering the orthographic depth and developmental level.

Early intervention for children with reading impairments is crucial in order to achieve reading improvements and avoid school failure. One line of reading intervention research focuses on the experimental manipulation of reading rate through a text-fading training approach. Considering relevant reading-related predictors (i.e., orthographic knowledge and rapid automatized naming; RAN), we aim at evaluating the text-fading training’s efficiency for a sample of German reading-impaired third graders (n = 120). The purpose of the present study was to examine (1) the predictive value of orthographic knowledge and RAN and their contribution of explained variance in comprehension performance during training, (2) text-fading training effects on reading rate and comprehension in a pre-post comparison, and (3) (lasting) text-fading training effects at word and sentence level in a pre-post-follow-up design. Results of structural models indicated RAN to be significantly related to comprehension performance for the experimental group, whereas no sufficient regression weight was found for orthographic knowledge. A reverse pattern was found for the self-paced group. No significant improvements regarding reading rate and comprehension were revealed for the experimental group after training. However, significant positive effects on word and sentence level at post-test time point indicate stronger reading improvements for the experimental compared to the control group. The retention of training gains was indicated at sentence-level reading 6 months after the training. Possible explanations for the presented positive training effects as well as the mixed results for reading rate, comprehension, and follow-up preservation are discussed.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act grants dissatisfied parents of students with disabilities the right to pursue legal remedies. In 2007, Rose and Zirkel found that parents of students with reading disabilities seeking Orton-Gillingham (OG) instruction under the IDEA’s central obligation for a free appropriate public education (FAPE) were largely unsuccessful in their complaints. Since that review, various factors had the potential to influence the frequency and outcomes of OG-related case law—namely, the peer-reviewed research requirement of the IDEA and growing awareness of the need for specialized reading instruction. Our updated analysis of OG-related case law revealed an increase in the number of cases but similar district-favored outcomes identified by Rose and Zirkel. In particular, the relaxed substantive FAPE standard and deference to local and state authorities diminished the likelihood of parents prevailing in their requests. Implications for parents, school district personnel, special education professionals, and education researchers are presented.

This study evaluates the effect of an intervention whose aim is to make articulatory consciousness a tool in decoding and spelling. The sample comprises 11 students with severe dyslexia (2 SD below the mean pseudoword scores), and the intervention programme consists of 32 individual sessions over 8 weeks. The study applies a multiple baseline/probe design with five baseline tests that correspond to a control condition, eight tests during the intervention and five post-intervention tests. On average, the results show significant improvement in all reading and spelling outcomes. However, there were also significant effects on an irrelevant control task (the pegboard test), perhaps indicating testing effects on the dependent variables, making it difficult to draw firm conclusions from the study. Consequently, testing the intervention in randomised trials of children with severe dyslexia is recommended to draw more firm conclusions about its efficacy for this group.