Contributions of Phonology and Orthography to Spelling in Children with Dyslexia

Learning to spell is dependent on a child’s ability to simultaneously process phonological (i.e., related to sounds) and orthographic (i.e., related to letters) information. The contributions of phonological and orthographic processes in children with dyslexia have been explored more in reading than in spelling. Evidence from reading research indicates that children with dyslexia tend to rely on relatively preserved orthographic knowledge to compensate for their phonological weaknesses. More studies are needed in spelling, as existing evidence is not clear as to whether phonological and orthographic processes make joint or separate contributions. The present study used phonological and orthographic neighbors (i.e., words differing by a single sound or letter) to examine processing abilities in children with dyslexia and children with typical reading skills. A total of 57 children with dyslexia (grade 4), age-matched typically developing children (grade 4), and reading-level-matched typically developing children (grades 1 and 2) were recruited from elementary schools in Kansas. Participants were asked to spell and read nonwords that varied in the number of phonological and orthographic neighbors (i.e., dense/large neighborhoods vs. sparse/small neighborhoods). Our results revealed that nonwords with many phonological neighbors facilitated spelling and reading performances, whereas nonwords with many orthographic neighbors did not. Performances were similar between children with dyslexia and typical readers. Our findings do not support the idea of orthographic compensation in children with dyslexia and instead, they suggest that children rely more on their phonological knowledge than their orthographic knowledge. We discuss how our findings inform theoretical models of spelling and reading, and how methodological characteristics may explain discrepancies between our study and previous studies

Learning and Remembering New Words: Clinical Illustrations From Children With Specific Language Impairment

This is that author's accepted manuscript. The original is available at http://sig1perspectives.pubs.asha.org/article.aspx?articleid=2469122&resultClick=

Interactive book reading to accelerate word learning by kindergarten children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI): Identifying adequate progress and successful learning patterns

PURPOSE. The goal of this study was to provide guidance to clinicians on early benchmarks of successful word learning in an interactive book reading treatment and to examine how encoding and memory evolution during treatment contribute to word learning outcomes by kindergarten children with SLI. METHOD. Twenty-seven kindergarten children with SLI participated in a preliminary clinical trial using interactive book reading to teach 30 new words. Word learning was assessed at four points during treatment through a picture naming test. RESULTS. The results indicate that the following performance during treatment was cause for concern, indicating a need to modify the treatment: naming 0-1 treated words correctly at naming test 1; naming 0-2 treated words correctly at naming test 2; naming 0-3 treated words correctly at naming test 3. In addition, the results showed that encoding was the primary limiting factor in word learning but retention also contributed (albeit to a lesser degree) to word learning success. CONCLUSION. Case illustrations demonstrate how a clinician’s understanding of a child’s word learning strengths and weaknesses develop over the course of treatment, substantiating the importance of regular data collection and clinical decision-making to ensure the best possible outcomes for each individual child

The Impact of Dose and Dose Frequency on Word Learning by Kindergarten Children With Developmental Language Disorder During Interactive Book Reading

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.Purpose The goal was to determine whether interactive book reading outcomes for children with developmental language disorder (DLD) were affected by manipulation of dose (i.e., the number of exposures to the target word during a book reading session) and dose frequency (i.e., the number of repeated book reading sessions) and whether pretreatment factors predicted treatment response variation. Method Thirty-four kindergarten children with DLD (aged 5;0–6;2 [years;months]) were taught 1 set of words using the Dose 6 and Dose Frequency 6 format from a prior study (Storkel, Voelmle, et al., 2017) and taught a different set of words using an alternative format, either Dose 4 × Dose Frequency 9 or Dose 9 × Dose Frequency 4, determined through random assignment. Word learning was tracked for each treatment via a definition task prior to, during, and after treatment. Results Results showed that children with DLD learned a significant number of words during treatment regardless of the dose and dose frequency format but that significant forgetting of newly learned words occurred in all formats once treatment was withdrawn. Individual differences in word learning were related to Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals Core Language and Understanding Spoken Paragraphs scores. Conclusion When administered at an adequate intensity, variation in the dose and dose frequency of interactive book reading does not appear to influence word learning by children with DLD. Although interactive book reading continues to show promise as an effective word learning intervention for children with DLD, further development is needed to enhance the effectiveness of this treatment approach