Visuo-spatial cueing in children with differential reading and spelling profiles

Dyslexia has been claimed to be causally related to deficits in visuo-spatial attention. In particular, inefficient shifting of visual attention during spatial cueing paradigms is assumed to be associated with problems in graphemic parsing during sublexical reading. The current study investigated visuo-spatial attention performance in an exogenous cueing paradigm in a large sample (N = 191) of third and fourth graders with different reading and spelling profiles (controls, isolated reading deficit, isolated spelling deficit, combined deficit in reading and spelling). Once individual variability in reaction times was taken into account by means of z-transformation, a cueing deficit (i.e. no significant difference between valid and invalid trials) was found for children with combined deficits in reading and spelling. However, poor readers without spelling problems showed a cueing effect comparable to controls, but exhibited a particularly strong right-over-left advantage (position effect). Isolated poor spellers showed a significant cueing effect, but no position effect. While we replicated earlier findings of a reduced cueing effect among poor nonword readers (indicating deficits in sublexical processing), we also found a reduced cueing effect among children with particularly poor orthographic spelling (indicating deficits in lexical processing). Thus, earlier claims of a specific association with nonword reading could not be confirmed. Controlling for ADHD-symptoms reported in a parental questionnaire did not impact on the statistical analysis, indicating that cueing deficits are not caused by more general attentional limitations. Between 31 and 48% of participants in the three reading and/or spelling deficit groups as well as 32% of the control group showed reduced spatial cueing. These findings indicate a significant, but moderate association between certain aspects of visuo-spatial attention and subcomponents of written language processing, the causal status of which is yet unclear

Deficient Letter-Speech Sound Integration Is Associated With Deficits in Reading but Not Spelling

Efficient and automatic integration of letters and speech sounds is assumed to enable fluent word recognition and may in turn also underlie the build-up of high-quality orthographic representations, which are relevant for accurate spelling. While previous research showed that developmental dyslexia is associated with deficient letter-speech sound integration, these studies did not differentiate between subcomponents of literacy skills. In order to investigate whether deficient letter-speech sound integration is associated with deficits in reading and/or spelling, three groups of third graders were recruited: (1) children with combined deficits in reading and spelling (RSD, N = 10);(2) children with isolated spelling deficit (ISD, N = 17);and (3) typically developing children (TD, N = 21). We assessed the neural correlates (EEG) of letter-speech sound integration using a Stroop-like interference paradigm: participants had to decide whether two visually presented letters look identical. In case of non-identical letter pairs, conflict items were the same letter in lower and upper case (e.g., "T t"), while non-conflict items were different letters (e.g., "T k"). In terms of behavioral results, each of the three groups exhibited a comparable amount of conflict-related reaction time (RT) increase, which may be a sign for no general inhibitory deficits. Event-related potentials (ERPs), on the other hand, revealed group-based differences: the amplitudes of the centro-parietal conflict slow potential (cSP) were increased for conflicting items in typical readers as well as the ISD group. Preliminary results suggest that this effect was missing for children with RSD. The results suggest that deficits in automatized letter-speech sound associations are associated with reading deficit, but no impairment was observed in spelling deficit

Sublexikalische und lexikalische Leseprozesse bei Kindern mit guten und schwachen Leseleistungen

Die vorherrschende Annahme ist, dass guten Leseleistungen lexikalische Leseprozesse zugrunde liegen, während Lesedefizite auf vorrangig sublexikalische Leseprozesse zurückgeführt werden. In der vorliegenden Dissertation wurden die zugrunde liegenden Leseprozesse von Kindern mit guten und schwachen Leseleistungen innerhalb der transparenten Orthographie Deutsch untersucht. In Studie 1 konnte mittels Eyetracking gezeigt werden, dass auch leseschwache Kinder lexikalische Leseprozesse nutzen. In Studie 2 wurden mittels Eyetracking die zugrunde liegenden Leseprozesse von Kindern mit guten und schwachen Leseleistungen unabhängig von ihren Rechtschreibleistungen untersucht. Interessanterweise konnten nur für Kinder mit kombinierten Lese- und Rechtschreibdefiziten vereinzelt Hinweise auf vermehrte sublexikalische Leseprozesse beobachtet werden, während sie auch Hinweise auf lexikalische Leseverarbeitungsprozesse zeigten. Kinder mit isolierten Lese- und Rechtschreibdefiziten wiesen keine Unterschiede in den Leseprozessen zu Kindern mit altersadäquaten Lese- und Rechtschreibleistungen auf. In Studie 3 konnten zudem im Rahmen von EEG-Messungen nur für rechtschreibschwache Kinder atypische neurophysiologische Korrelate lexikalisch-semantischer Leseprozesse beobachtet werden, nicht aber für leseschwache Kinder. Die Ergebnisse verweisen darauf, dass im Deutschen sowohl Kinder mit guten als auch schwachen Leseleistungen sublexikalische und lexikalische Leseprozesse nutzen und dass schwache Leseleistungen vorrangig durch ein visuell-verbales Zugriffsdefizit erklärt werden können, wodurch sublexikalische und lexikalische Leseprozesse gleichermaßen beeinträchtigt sind. Zudem zeigen die Ergebnisse, dass auch ungenaue orthographische Wortrepräsentationen für eine adäquate Leseleistung ausreichend sind. So gehen weder Rechtscheib- noch Lesedefizite in transparenten Orthographien zwangsläufig mit einer spezifischen Beeinträchtigung in den lexikalischen Leseprozessen einher.Good reading skills are generally thought to rely on lexical reading processes, while reading deficits are explained by an overreliance on sublexical reading processes. The current doctoral thesis investigated the underlying reading processes of children with good and poor reading skills in the transparent German orthography. Study 1 revealed on the basis of eye tracking measures that even poor readers use lexical processes during reading. In study 2 eye tracking was used to examine the underlying reading processes of good and poor readers regardless of their spelling skills. Interestingly, only for children with combined reading and spelling deficits some evidence for increased sublexical reading processes was observed while they also showed evidence for lexical reading processes. Children with isolated reading and spelling deficits did not show any differences in their reading processes compared to children with age-adequate reading and spelling skills. Furthermore, based on EEG recordings in study 3 poor spellers exhibited atypical neurophysiological correlates of lexico-semantic access but this was not true for poor readers. The results show that in German both children with good and poor reading skills use sublexical as well as lexical reading strategies and that poor reading skills primarily result from a deficient visual-verbal access which affects sublexical as well as lexical reading procedures. The results also show, that even less exact word-specific orthographic representations are sufficient for adequate reading. Thus, neither spelling nor reading deficits in transparent orthographies are systematically associated with deficits in lexical reading processes.vorgelegt von Mag. rer. nat. Melanie GanglZusammenfassungen in Deutsch und EnglischAbweichender Titel laut Übersetzung des Verfassers/der VerfasserinKomulative Dissertation aus 3 ArtikelnKarl-Franzens-Universität Graz, Dissertation, 2018OeBB(VLID)288763

PONE_D_16_49580R_FTC

The Dataset is available in the SPSS format and each variable contains a description

Data from: Visuo-spatial cueing in children with differential reading and spelling profiles

Dyslexia has been claimed to be causally related to deficits in visuo-spatial attention. In particular, inefficient shifting of visual attention during spatial cueing paradigms is assumed to be associated with problems in graphemic parsing during sublexical reading. The current study investigated visuo-spatial attention performance in an exogenous cueing paradigm in a large sample (N = 191) of third and fourth graders with different reading and spelling profiles (controls, isolated reading deficit, isolated spelling deficit, combined deficit in reading and spelling). Once individual variability in reaction times was taken into account by means of z-transformation, a cueing deficit (i.e. no significant difference between valid and invalid trials) was found for children with combined deficits in reading and spelling. However, poor readers without spelling problems showed a cueing effect comparable to controls, but exhibited a particularly strong right-over-left advantage (position effect). Isolated poor spellers showed a significant cueing effect, but no position effect. While we replicated earlier findings of a reduced cueing effect among poor nonword readers (indicating deficits in sublexical processing), we also found a reduced cueing effect among children with particularly poor orthographic spelling (indicating deficits in lexical processing). Thus, earlier claims of a specific association with nonword reading could not be confirmed. Controlling for ADHD-symptoms reported in a parental questionnaire did not impact on the statistical analysis, indicating that cueing deficits are not caused by more general attentional limitations. Between 31 and 48 % of participants in the three reading and/or spelling deficit groups as well as 32 % of the control group showed reduced spatial cueing. These findings indicate a significant, but moderate association between certain aspects of visuo-spatial attention and subcomponents of written language processing, the causal status of which is yet unclear

A trial of the visuo-spatial cueing paradigm.

<p>A trial of the visuo-spatial cueing paradigm.</p

Mean differences, standard errors and Bayes Factors (B) for the comparison of TD children against each deficit group for the letter and the symbol tasks.

<p>Mean differences, standard errors and Bayes Factors (B) for the comparison of TD children against each deficit group for the letter and the symbol tasks.</p

zRTs for each group (C, RD, SD, RSD) for valid vs. invalid (A) and left vs. right (B).

<p>Bars represent standard errors.</p

Mean scores (M) and Standard Deviations (SD) for literacy and cognitive measures in the three groups.

<p>Mean scores (M) and Standard Deviations (SD) for literacy and cognitive measures in the three groups.</p