Non-adjacent dependency learning from variable input : investigating the effects of bilingualism, phonological memory, and cognitive control

INTRODUCTION: One proposed advantage of bilingualism concerns the ability to extract regularities based on frequency information (statistical learning). Specifically, it has been proposed that bilinguals have an advantage in statistical learning that particularly holds in situations of variable input. Empirical evidence on this matter is scarce. An additional question is whether a potential bilingual advantage in statistical learning can be attributed to enhancements in phonological memory and cognitive control. Previous findings on effects of bilingualism on phonological memory and cognitive control are not consistent. METHOD: In the present study, we compared statistical learning from consistent and variable input in monolingual and bilingual children (Study 1) and adults (Study 2). We also explored whether phonological memory and cognitive control might account for any potential group differences found. RESULTS: The findings suggest that there might be some advantage of bilinguals in statistical learning, but that this advantage is not robust: It largely surfaced only in t-tests against chance for the groups separately, did not surface in the same way for children and adults, and was modulated by experiment order. Furthermore, our results provide no evidence that any enhancement in bilinguals' statistical learning was related to improved phonological memory and cognitive control: bilinguals did not outperform monolinguals on these cognitive measures and performance on these measures did not consistently relate to statistical learning outcomes. DISCUSSION: Taken together, these findings suggest that any potential effects of bilingualism on statistical learning probably do not involve enhanced cognitive abilities associated with bilingualism

Wrong place, wrong time: Children's sensitivity to present tense spelling conventions

Spelling has been found to be influenced by the frequency with which certain orthographic patterns occur. We examined whether Grades 2-5 children were already sensitive to orthographic frequency in spelling present tense verb inflections that sound the same but are spelled differently. Children were asked to spell present tenses in two homophonous forms; both inflections are pronounced with final /t/ but are spelled with final -d (ik vind, I find) or -dt (hij/zij vindt, he/she finds). Previous research has shown that adolescents and adults make inflection errors based on the relative frequency within a pair; as vind' is more frequent than vindt, vind is often used incorrectly. The children showed low correct scores for third person singular spellings, and overall better performance for -d dominant verbs. Surprisingly, they did make errors related to homophone inflection but in the wrong place, marking the wrong time: homophone-based errors occurred in present tense non-homophone verbs and in past tenses. We take our findings to mean that the children were not sensitive to homophone dominance. Furthermore, the findings illustrate the importance of specific graphotactic patterns in literacy development and call for attention to these patterns in models and teaching of spelling

The same yet different: Oral and silent reading in children and adolescents with dyslexia

Dyslexia is characterized by poor word reading. In research, education, and diagnosis, oral reading is commonly assessed, and outcomes are generalized to silent reading, although similarities and differences between oral and silent reading are poorly understood. We therefore compared oral word reading, oral text reading and silent text reading. Children (n = 40; aged 8–11) and adolescents (n = 54; aged 14–18) with dyslexia, and typical readers (n = 18, and n = 24 respectively), read a word-list and an age-appropriate text aloud, and silently read a text including instructions for simple tasks. Whereas oral and silent reading fluency were comparable for children, silent reading was more fluent than oral reading for adolescents. Importantly, the silent reading deficit of children and adolescents with dyslexia was as large as in oral reading or larger, highlighting the need for a focus on both reading modes in research, diagnosis and treatment of dyslexia

De behandeling van emotionele problemen bij ernstige dyslexie: Suggesties voor behandelaren in de (vergoede) dyslexiezorg

Met dit artikel hopen wij dyslexiebehandelaren te stimuleren en inspireren om binnen of naast de vergoede dyslexiebehandeling (verdere) invulling te geven aan de emotionele aspecten van het leren lezen en spellen. Het artikel bestaat uit de volgende onderdelen: een casusbeschrijving, een beknopt overzicht van bevindingen uit de literatuur over de impact van dyslexie op het emotioneel functioneren, en een uitwerking van manieren waarop aandacht besteed kan worden aan emotionele problemen in de dyslexiebehandeling. We sluiten af met een aantal aandachtspunten met betrekking tot het vormgeven van de behandeling binnen de huidige beleids- en financieringskaders

Word reading in monolingual and bilingual children with developmental language disorder

Many children with developmental language disorder (DLD) are reported to have word reading difficulties. However, previous research has focused mostly on monolingual children. The present study used two existing datasets to assess word reading outcomes of bilingual children with DLD. In Study 1, we compared word reading outcomes of monolingual and bilingual children with and without DLD (n = 93 monolingual DLD; n = 33 bilingual DLD, n = 42 monolingual TD; n = 74 bilingual TD). In Study 2, we compared those of monolingual (n = 91) and bilingual children with DLD (n = 51) on the basis of school record data. Findings from both studies show mean poor word reading outcomes and a high incidence of poor readers in the groups of children with DLD. Despite lower oral language outcomes of bilingual children in the mainstream language, reading outcomes of monolingual and bilingual children (with/without DLD) did not differ or outcomes were even better for the bilingual children. Overall, these findings indicate that DLD is a risk factor for word reading difficulties, while bilingualism is not

Word-level spelling of children with dyslexia and developmental language disorder

Spelling is challenging for children with dyslexia and for children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), but it is not clear as yet whether the difficulties are the same in both groups of children, as few direct comparisons between spelling outcomes of these groups have been reported. We therefore compared the mean word dictation spelling outcomes of children (age range 8.2-10.4 years) with dyslexia (n=31), DLD (n=30) and typically developing (TD) age-matched peers (n=31) as well as the error types. Additionally, we divided the group of children with DLD into those with (DLD+RD, n=18) and without word reading difficulties (DLD-only, n=12). Finally, we conducted concurrent regression analyses to establish which language- and literacy-related abilities contribute to spelling. Both the groups with dyslexia and DLD displayed spelling problems. These were most pronounced for the subgroup of children with DLD+RD. The error type analyses showed that the groups with dyslexia and DLD made more errors in all categories than the TD group. Furthermore, the dyslexia, DLD-only and DLD+RD groups showed similar errors with phoneme-grapheme associations that were not entirely transparent (gauw [quick] as *gouw), with mappings of phonology-orthography and morpho-logy (pittig [spicy] as *pitteg), and errors concerning spelling rules (metro [metro] as *meetro). The dyslexia and DLD+RD groups also showed more errors in transparent phonology-grapheme mappings (boek [book] as *beok) and orthographic knowledge(loanwords, hyphenation). The regression analysis showed a strong contribution of word reading and rapid automatized naming to spelling. When these measures were excluded, morphology contributed significantly, but to a lesser extent. The findings confirm the spelling problems of children with dyslexia and with DLD, especially the severe problems of children with DLD+RD. They also point to the importance of word-reading ability and rapid automatized naming for spelling, as well as to a smaller contribution of morphology. Together, the findings show the need for systematic spelling instruction and intervention for children with dyslexia and DLD, as well as support of oral language

Perceived negative consequences of dyslexia: the influence of person and environmental factors

Perceived negative consequences of dyslexia entail the degree to which an individual perceives negative outcomes, such as low academic achievement or feelings of anxiety and depression, and attributes these experiences to the disorder. In the current study, we examined how perceived consequences of dyslexia are influenced by person and environmental factors. Perceived consequences were evaluated for the academic domain and the domain of mental health (depression, anxiety). Participants were 123 Dutch students with dyslexia. Cognitive person factors (literacy skills and verbal IQ), socio-emotional person factors (self-perceived literacy skills and coping ability), and environmental factors (literacy demands, support from the institution, reactions of teachers and peers) were included as predictors. Results indicated that perceived negative consequences were not related to cognitive person factors. In contrast, better self-perceived literacy skills were associated with less perceived negative consequences in all domains (academic, depression, anxiety) and coping contributed to depression consequences. With respect to environmental factors, negative reactions in the academic environment contributed to perceived negative consequences of depression and anxiety. As such, findings indicate that individuals with dyslexia perceive negative consequences in the academic, anxiety, and depression domains which cannot be fully accounted for by their objective reading and writing problems. These factors should feature more prominently in future studies on dyslexia and should be addressed in treatment of dyslexia as well

Serious game-based word-to-text integration intervention effects in English as a second language

Word-to-text integration (WTI) is the ability to integrate words into a mental representation of the text and is important for reading comprehension, but challenging in English as a second language (ESL). However, it remains unclear whether WTI can be trained in seventh grade ESL learners, who often struggle with reading comprehension and display large individual differences. To pay attention to individual differences, the present study examined an adaptive computer game-based WTI-intervention. The intervention, replacing 50 min of ESL classroom instruction, comprized a 12-week program in which students had to complete WTI-based assignments within four serious games, targeting morphosyntactic awareness, translation of words within sentences, recognizing idioms from words in contexts, and a filler game targeting dictation. The intervention group (n = 164) was compared to a control group (n = 166), who only received regular ESL classroom instruction. Both groups completed the following reading measures: decoding, morphological, and syntactic awareness, WTI (argument and anomaly reading speed and processing), and reading comprehension tasks at the beginning (T1) of the school year and at the end (T2) of the school year. Results demonstrated an intervention effect on decoding and anomaly processing as reflected by an interaction between time (T1 vs. T2) and group (intervention vs. control) in a repeated measures MANOVA. Follow-up mediation analyses for the intervention group only - with game performance as mediators between reading measures at T1 and T2 - indicated that students with better T1 scores on reading measures showed more growth in performance within games. More performance growth within the translation game and the idiom recognition game was related to better reading scores at T2. Both high-achieving and low-achieving students displayed performance growth within games, indicating that a WTI intervention yields promising results for a broad variety of ESL readers

Pathways Into Literacy:The Role of Early Oral Language Abilities and Family Risk for Dyslexia

The present study investigated the role of early oral language and family risk for dyslexia in the two developmental pathways toward reading comprehension, through word reading and through oral language abilities. The sample contained 237 children (164 at family risk for dyslexia) from the Dutch Dyslexia Program. Longitudinal data were obtained on seven occasions when children were between 4 and 12 years old. The relationship between early oral language ability and reading comprehension at the age of 12 years was mediated by preliteracy skills and word-decoding ability for the first pathway and by later language abilities for the second pathway. Family risk influenced literacy development through its subsequent relations with preliteracy skills, word decoding, and reading comprehension. Although performance on language measures was often lower for the family-risk group than for the no-family-risk group, family risk did not have a specific relation with either early or later oral language abilities