The Flamingo Test:A new diagnostic instrument for dyslexia in Dutch higher education students

In this study, we present a new diagnostic test for dyslexia, called the Flamingo Test, inspired by the French Alouette Test. The purpose of the test is to measure students' word decoding skills and reading fluency by means of a grammatically correct but meaningless text. Two experiments were run to test the predictive validity of the Flamingo Test. In the first experiment, we compared reading times, error rates and, sensitivity and specificity of the Flamingo Test for samples of students with and without dyslexia. In the second experiment, we compared performance on the Flamingo Test with reading performance on two Dutch standard word reading tests: the Leestest Een Minuut voor Studenten (LEMs; 'one-minute word reading test for students') and the Klepel, a one-minute pseudo-word reading test. Again, students with dyslexia and matched non-dyslexic students were included. Our results show that sensitivity and specificity, as well as the positive predictive value (PPV), of the Flamingo Test are high, with even slightly higher PPVs for the Flamingo Test than for LEMs and Klepel. Together with the fact that the test is short and easy to administer, we believe that the Flamingo Test is a valuable new diagnostic instrument to assess reading skills

Dutch Dyslexia Programme (DDP):Early neurophysiological precursors of developmental dyslexia.

Developmental dyslexia is a neurobiological disorder, characterized by deficits in the auditory (phonological), visual, motor and linguistic domains. In the longitudinal Dutch Dyslexia Programme (DDP; (van der Leij et al., 2013; van der Leij & Maassen, 2013)) 180 children with a familial risk of dyslexia (FR), and a control group of 120 children were studied from the age of 2 months to 9 years. Data collection focused on auditory and visual ERPs between 2 and 47 months of age and reading assessments at age 7 to 9 years. Based on the reading tests the children were divided into 3 groups: FR-children with (FRdys) and without dyslexia (FRnondys), and fluently reading controls (CTRL; excluding dyslexic non-FR children). A series of experiments will be presented. First, a brief overview is given of auditory ERP at age 2 and 5 months in relation to risk status (Been et al., 2008; Van Leeuwen et al., 2006; Van Leeuwen et al., 2007), and differences at age 2 months between FRdys, FRnondys and CTRL (van Zuijen et al., 2013). Second, new analyses are presented of auditory ERP at age 17 months in relation to reading outcome. Two types of analyses were conducted: a peak-picking procedure to determine amplitude and latency of P1, N2, P2, N4, like in van Herten et al. (2008), and a temporal Principal Component Analysis (tPCA) to find the significant episodes, like in Leppänen et al. (Leppänen et al., 2010). Significant relations with reading outcome were found. Third, ongoing experiments applying auditory and visual paradigms (such as 'print tuning', (Maurer et al., 2006; Maurer et al., 2007)) are described, that allow us to closely monitor early and advanced reading acquisition. Focus in the latter experiments is on normalization and compensation processes in children with reading difficulties

Toward a Model of Pediatric Speech Sound Disorders (SSD) for Differential Diagnosis and Therapy Planning

The classification and differentiation of pediatric speech sound disorders (SSD) is one of the main questions in the field of speech- and language pathology. Terms for classifying childhood and SSD and motor speech disorders (MSD) refer to speech production processes, and a variety of methods of intervention has been developed aimed at different parts of the speech production process. However, in clinical practice diagnosis is primarily based on behavioral speech symptoms rather than the underlying deficits. The diagnostic dilemma is that the ability to investigate the characteristics of subtypes of SSD requires ‘pure’ cases selected on the basis of unambiguous/clear-cut criteria, which are only available as a result of research. In this chapter we propose a process-oriented approach to diagnosis and treatment planning of pediatric SSD based on three pillars of research that will allow us to break through the circularity and bring the field a substantial step forward in the next decade. The core of this approach is a focus on underlying deficits rather than classification based on symptoms. We argue that to identify underlying deficits, one must start with a model of the cognitive and neuromotor operations involved from which specific hypotheses of speech symptoms are derived. This research methodology is implemented in the form of clinical instruments that allow for direct demonstration of the underlying deficit(s). A process-oriented diagnostic test battery as suggested here holds important advantages for the diagnosis and treatment of pediatric speech disorders and will foster the development of more targeted interventions and outcome measures. The approach is illustrated by comparing childhood apraxia of speech (CAS)m with other pediatric SSD.<br/