Crossing the bridge to elementary school : The development of children's working memory components in relation to teacher-student relationships and academic achievement

Working memory is important for a variety of life domains,. including for children's school functioning. As such, it is crucial to understand its development, antecedents and consequences. The current study investigates the development of different working memory components (phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, central executive), the influence of different aspects of the teacher-student relationship (closeness, conflict, dependency) and its predictive value for academic achievement (reading, spelling, mathematics) across the transition from kindergarten to first grade. The sample consisted of 107 kindergarten children. Working memory tasks were administered at the end of kindergarten and first grade. Teachers reported on teacher-student relationship quality in the middle of first grade. Standardized tests were used to assess academic achievement at the end of first grade. Results indicate moderate to large increases in the phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad and large gains in the central executive. Dependency of the student towards the teacher significantly predicted visuospatial sketchpad performance at the end of first grade. Reading was significantly predicted by the visuospatial sketchpad and phonological loop in kindergarten, while for spelling the visuospatial sketchpad was important. Finally, mathematics was predicted by performance on the phonological loop and the visuospatial sketchpad. The current study indicates the importance of the affective quality of the teacher-student relationship for working memory performance, which in turn is important for academic achievement. It is therefore critical to attend to the early detection and prevention or intervention of working memory problems in the classroom in order to prevent future academic problems. Additionally, maintaining a positive relationship with students and encouraging their independent exploration may be important when preventing such problems, complementary to cognitive or other types of training and intervention.Peer reviewe

Early Development and Predictors of Morphological Awareness: Separating the influences of decoding skills from phonological awareness

Developmental dyslexia is characterized by persistent reading and spelling difficulties. It has been well established that one of the major causes of these literacy problems lays in a deficit involving the quality and accuracy of phonological representations. Frequently these phonological problems have been linked to more basic perceptual impairments, specifically deficits in temporal auditory processing and speech perception. Yet, debates persist regarding the directionality and role of these relationships within the expressed reading deficits. Longitudinal studies of pre-reading children through literacy development could help to clarify these issues. The current longitudinal study followed 44 pre-reading children with and without a family risk of dyslexia through different stages of reading development. Results show atypical performance in auditory processing of rise time (RT) discrimination and phonological awareness (PA) at three time points (kindergarten, first, and second grade) in children who developed dyslexia. RT and frequency modulation (FM) sensitivity in kindergarten uniquely contributed to growth in reading ability in grades one and two, even after controlling for letter knowledge and phonological awareness. Highly significant concurrent and predictive correlations, even when controlled for autoregressive effects, suggest a potential causal relationship between auditory processing of RT and PA, with kindergarten RT significantly predicting later PA

Morphological Awareness and Compensation in Word Reading of Dyslexics

This study examines the role of morphological awareness (MA) in literacy achievement and compensation in word reading of adults with dyslexia through an exploration of three questions: (1) Do adult dyslexics demonstrate a deficit in MA, and how is this potential deficit related to phonological awareness (PA)? (2) Does MA contribute independently to literacy skills equally in dyslexics and control readers? and (3) Do MA and PA skills differ in compensated and noncompensated dyslexics? A group of dyslexic and normal reading university students matched for age, education and IQ participated in this study. Group analysis demonstrated an MA deficit in dyslexics; as well, MA was found to significantly predict a greater proportion of word reading and spelling within the dyslexic group compared with the controls. Compensated dyslexics were also found to perform significantly better on the morphological task than noncompensated dyslexics. Additionally, no statistical difference was observed in MA between the normal reading controls and the compensated group (independent of PA and vocabulary). Results suggest that intact and strong MA skills contribute to the achieved compensation of this group of adults with dyslexia. Implications for MA based intervention strategies for people with dyslexia are discussed

Atypical neural processing of rise time by adults with dyslexia

In recent studies phonological deficits in dyslexia are related to a deficit in the synchronization of neural oscillations to the dynamics of the speech envelope. The temporal features of both amplitude modulations and rise times characterize the speech envelope. Previous studies uncovered the inefficiency of the dyslexic brain to follow different amplitude modulations in speech. However, it remains to be investigated how the envelope's rise time mediates this neural processing. In this study we examined neural synchronization in students with and without dyslexia using auditory steady-state responses at theta, alpha, beta and low-gamma range oscillations (i.e., 4, 10, 20 and 40 Hz) to stimuli with different envelope rise times. Our results revealed reduced neural synchronization in the alpha, beta and low-gamma frequency ranges in dyslexia. Moreover, atypical neural synchronization was modulated by rise time for alpha and beta oscillations, showing that deficits found at 10 and 20 Hz were only evident when the envelope's rise time was significantly shortened. This impaired tracking of rise time cues may very well lead to the speech and phonological processing difficulties observed in dyslexia.status: publishe

A Multi Factorial Approach in the Investigation of the Role of Specific Cognitive and Perceptual Functions in Dyslexia

This study investigated whether auditory, speech perception and phonological skills are tightly interrelated or independently contributing to reading. We assessed each of these three skills in 36 adults with a past diagnosis of dyslexia and 54 matched normal reading adults. Phonological skills were tested by the typical threefold tasks, i.e., rapid automatic naming, verbal short-term memory and phonological awareness. Dynamic auditory processing skills were assessed by means of a frequency modulation (FM) and an amplitude rise time (RT); an intensity discrimination task (ID) was included as a non-dynamic control task. Speech perception was assessed by means of sentences and words-in-noise tasks. Group analyses revealed significant group differences in auditory tasks (i.e., RT and ID) and in phonological processing measures, yet no differences were found for speech perception. In addition, performance on RT discrimination correlated with reading but this relation was mediated by phonological processing and not by speech-in-noise. Finally, inspection of the individual scores revealed that the dyslexic readers showed an increased proportion of deviant subjects on the slow-dynamic auditory and phonological tasks, yet each individual dyslexic reader does not display a clear pattern of deficiencies across the processing skills. Although our results support phonological and slow-rate dynamic auditory deficits which relate to literacy, they suggest that at the individual level, problems in reading and writing cannot be explained by the cascading auditory theory. Instead, dyslexic adults seem to vary considerably in the extent to which each of the auditory and phonological factors are expressed and interact with environmental and higher-order cognitive influences

Coherent motion sensitivity predicts individual differences in subtraction

Recent findings suggest deficits in coherent motion sensitivity, an index of visual dorsal stream functioning, in children with poor mathematical skills or dyscalculia, a specific learning disability in mathematics. We extended these data using a longitudinal design to unravel whether visual dorsal stream functioning is able to predict individual differences in subsequent specific mathematical skills, i.e., single-digit subtraction and multiplication. We measured children's sensitivity to coherent motion in kindergarten (mean age: 5 years 8 months) and evaluated their subtraction and multiplication skills in third grade (mean age 8 years 3 months). Findings revealed an association between subtraction but not multiplication performance and coherent motion sensitivity. This association remained significant even when intellectual ability and reading ability were additionally controlled for. Subtractions are typically solved by means of quantity-based procedural strategies, which reliably recruit the intraparietal sulcus. Against the background of a neural overlap between the intraparietal sulcus and visual dorsal stream functioning, we hypothesize that low-level visuospatial mechanisms might set constraints on the development of quantity representations, which are used during calculation, particularly in subtraction.status: publishe

A qualitative and quantitative review of diffusion tensor imaging studies in reading and dyslexia (vol 36, pg 1532, 2012)

© 2018 Elsevier Ltd In our review paper on diffusion MRI and reading studies, we combined a narrative review with a quantitative meta-analysis that was conducted in a subset of nine studies reporting coordinates of correlations with reading performance. We used Ginger ALE meta-analysis software version V2.0.4. However, Eickhoff et al (2016) recently reported important implementation errors in Ginger ALE meta-analysis software older than version V2.3.6. This includes an error in the false discovering rate (FDR) correction, which we applied in our study. This implementation error affects the calculation of the statistical threshold for determining significance, resulting in clusters that might be falsely identified as significant. The impact of this error on the results is dataset specific and Eickhoff et al (2016) therefore recommended rerunning the analyses using the newest version of Ginger ALE. Regarding our dataset, the temporoparietal and frontal clusters that we previously identified as correlating with reading performance (using the incorrectly implemented FDR-correction in version V2.0.4) were not significant when using the correctly implemented FDR-correction in version V2.3.6. Note that the implementation error does not affect the peak locations identified in the analyses; the same temporoparietal and frontal clusters are still identified but only when using a more liberal threshold (uncorrected p <.001). In addition to the implementation error, we observed some typos in the foci we included in the meta-analyses. Adjusting these did not change our identified two clusters in the main analyses, but the robustness of the temporoparietal cluster, which was previously confirmed in additional analyses (i.e. step 1a and step 1b), is now only confirmed in step 1b. In sum, the lack of significance using proper FDR-correction, the typos in the foci as well as the low number of included studies (N = 9) highlights the continuing need to retest the reproducibility of diffusion MRI studies on reading. The authors apologize for any inconvenience caused and would like to thank Dr. Herrnberger for notifying us. The authors would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused.status: publishe

Subcortical auditory neural synchronization is deficient in pre-reading children who develop dyslexia

Auditory processing of temporal information in speech is sustained by synchronized firing of neurons along the entire auditory pathway. In school‐aged children and adults with dyslexia, neural synchronization deficits have been found at cortical levels of the auditory system, however, these deficits do not appear to be present in pre‐reading children. An alternative role for subcortical synchronization in reading development and dyslexia has been suggested, but remains debated. By means of a longitudinal study, we assessed cognitive reading‐related skills and subcortical auditory steady‐state responses (80 Hz ASSRs) in a group of children before formal reading instruction (pre‐reading), after 1 year of formal reading instruction (beginning reading), and after 3 years of formal reading instruction (more advanced reading). Children were retrospectively classified into three groups based on family risk and literacy achievement: typically developing children without a family risk for dyslexia, typically developing children with a family risk for dyslexia, and children who developed dyslexia. Our results reveal that children who developed dyslexia demonstrate decreased 80 Hz ASSRs at the pre‐reading stage. This effect is no longer present after the onset of reading instruction, due to an atypical developmental increase in 80 Hz ASSRs between the pre‐reading and the beginning reading stage. A forward stepwise logistic regression analysis showed that literacy achievement was predictable with an accuracy of 90.4% based on a model including three significant predictors, that is, family risk for dyslexia (R = .31), phonological awareness (R = .23), and 80 Hz ASSRs (R = .26). Given that (1) abnormalities in subcortical ASSRs preceded reading acquisition in children who developed dyslexia and (2) subcortical ASSRs contributed to the prediction of literacy achievement, subcortical auditory synchronization deficits may constitute a pre‐reading risk factor in the emergence of dyslexia.status: publishe

The arithmetic problem size effect in children: an event-related potential study

This study used for the first time event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine the well-known arithmetic problem size effect in children. The electrophysiological correlates of this problem size effect have been well documented in adults, but such information in children is lacking. In the present study, 22 typically developing 12-year-olds were asked to solve single-digit addition problems of small (sum ≤ 10) and large problem size (sum > 10) and to speak the solution into a voice key while ERPs were recorded. Children displayed similar early and late components compared to previous adult studies on the problem size effect. There was no effect of problem size on the early components P1, N1, and P2. The peak amplitude of the N2 component showed more negative potentials on left and right anterior electrodes for large additions compared to small additions, which might reflect differences in attentional and working memory resources between large and small problems. The mean amplitude of the late positivity component which follows the N2, was significantly larger for large than for small additions at right parieto-occipital electrodes, in line with previous adult data. The ERPs of the problem size effect during arithmetic might be a useful neural marker for future studies on fact retrieval impairments in children with mathematical difficulties.status: publishe