Research fund for the control of infectious diseases: commissioned studies

Research Fund for the Control of Infectious Diseases: Research Dissemination Reportspublished_or_final_versio

Word learning deficit among Chinese dyslexic children

The present study examined word learning difficulties in Chinese dyslexic children, readers of a nonalphabetic script. A total of 105 Hong Kong Chinese children were recruited and divided into three groups: Dyslexic (mean age 8;8), CA control (mean age 8;9), and RL control (mean age 6;11). They were given a word learning task and a familiar word writing task. It was found that the Dyslexic group performed less well than the RL group in learning irregular words over trials but not the regular ones. Error analyses showed that the Dyslexic group made more orthographic and word association errors but less intra-wordlist interference errors than the RL control group. The Dyslexic group also performed significantly less well than both control groups in writing familiar words (e.g. their own name). These findings suggest that Chinese dyslexic children have difficulty learning new words, especially irregular ones, and retaining overlearned words in long-term memory. We conclude that Chinese dyslexic children have a specific impairment in word learning like their alphabetic counterparts. © 2006 Cambridge University Press.published_or_final_versio

Screening for Chinese children with dyslexia in Hong Kong: The use of the teachers' behaviour checklist

Primary school teachers rated the frequency of occurrence of 65 reading-related behavioural characteristics in a sample of 251 Grade 1 to Grade 6 Chinese school children in Hong Kong. These behavioural characteristics were in the areas of general performance, reading, dictation, writing, mathematics, language, memory, concentration, sequential ability, motor co-ordination, spatial orientation, and social/emotional adjustment. Of these 12 areas, 10 yielded scale scores that could distinguish children with dyslexia from those without dyslexia, identified on the basis of their performance in five domains of literacy and cognitive skills. Using a summary score derived from the 10 relevant scales, an optimal cut-off score was suggested to arrive at a balance between high sensitivity and an acceptable rate of false positives in screening for children with dyslexia. The need for cross-replication in screening children with dyslexia using the behaviour checklist with different samples of school students is emphasised.published_or_final_versio

Estimating incidence of developmental dyslexia in Hong Kong: What differences do different criteria make?

Based on the data of a school-referred sample of Cantonese-speaking Chinese children who met the Hong Kong criterion of dyslexia, we estimated for developmental dyslexia of Chinese children aged between 6 and 10½ in Hong Kong an incidence rate of 0.66% and a gender ratio of 3.29 boys to 1 girl over a four-year period. We also explored the differences in estimates based on this Hong Kong criterion that emphasizes cognitive markers with more conventional discrepancy-based criteria. In view of the possible biases in self-selection and underreporting in the data of the school-referred sample, we compared the figures with those derived from the sample of the normative study of the Hong Kong Test of Specific Learning Difficulties in Reading and Writing, which yielded an estimate of 9.7% in prevalence rate and boy-girl gender ratio of 2 to 1 over a one-year period. The differences in estimates based on the two samples and implications of the findings are discussed in light of the limitations of the study.postprin

Summary of research projects supported by the Health Services Research Fund (HSRF) and the Health Care and Promotion Fund (HCPF)

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Hong Kong domestic health spending: Financial years 1989/90 to 2006/07

This report presents the latest estimates of Hong Kong domestic health spending for fiscal years 1989/90 to 2006/07, cross-stratified and categorised by financing source, provider, and function. Total expenditure on health (TEH) was HK$75 048 million in fiscal year 2006/07, which represents an increase of HK$4405 million or 6.2% over the preceding year. Represented as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), TEH increased from 3.6% in 1989/90 to 5.6% in 2003/04 and then decreased to 5.0% by 2006/07. Taking population growth into account, total health spending per capita (at constant 2007 prices) grew at an average annual rate of 5.1%, which was faster than the average annual growth rate of per capita GDP by 2.1 percentage points. In 2006/07, government financing of health expenditure was HK$37 417 million (49.9$37 631 million) in the last decade as a result of the continued growth of private spending (averaging 9.5% per annum in real terms since 2002/03). The second important source of health financing was out-of-pocket payments by households (35.2%), followed by employer-provided medical benefits (7.4%) and private insurance (5.6%). Private insurance has taken on an increasingly important role for financing private spending, whereas household and employer expenditure together has shown a corresponding decrease during the same period. Of the HK$75 048 million total health expenditure in 2006/07, current expenditure comprised HK$71 888 million (95.8%), whereas HK$3161 million (4.2by health care function, services for curative care accounted for the largest share of total health spending (66.2care, private hospitals had increased capital expenditure leading to an observed increase in investment in medical facilities from 2.2Analysed by health care provider, hospitals accounted for the largest share (42.7Not taking into account capital expenses (ie investment in medical facilities), public current expenditure on health amounted to HK$35 437 million (49.3% of total current expenditure) in 2006/07 with the remaining HK$36 451 million made up of private sources of funds. Expenditure on hospital care (HK$32 069 million) was predominately funded by general government revenue (83.8%), whereas that on providers of ambulatory health care (HK$23 201 million) was by private household out-of-pocket payments (67.3%). This reflects the mixed health care economy of Hong Kong, where public hospitals generally account for about 90% of total bed-days and private doctors (including western and Chinese medicine practitioners) provide about 70% of the out-patient care. Although both public and private spending were mostly expended on personal health care services and goods (92.2% of total spending), the distributional patterns among functional categories differed. Public expenditure was targeted at in-patient care (53.3%) and substantially less at out-patient care (24.4%), especially first-contact care. In comparison, private spending was mostly concentrated on out-patient care (48.7%), whereas medical goods outside the patient care setting (22.4%) and in-patient care (18.9%) comprised the majority of the remaining share. Compared to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries, Hong Kong has devoted a relatively low percentage of GDP to health care in the last decade. As a share of total spending, public funding (either general government revenue or social security funds) was also lower than in most comparably developed economies, although commensurate with its public revenue collection base.published_or_final_versio

Cognitive skills and literacy performance of Chinese adolescents with and without dyslexia

The present study sought to identify cognitive abilities that might distinguish Hong Kong Chinese adolescents with dyslexia and to assess how these abilities were associated with Chinese word reading, word dictation, and reading comprehension. The cognitive skills of interest were morphological awareness, visual-orthographic knowledge, rapid naming, and verbal working memory. A total of 90 junior secondary school students, 30 dyslexic, 30 chronological age controls, and 30 reading level controls was tested on a range of cognitive and literacy tasks. Dyslexic students were less competent than the control students in all cognitive and literacy measures. The regression analyses also showed that verbal working memory, rapid naming, morphological awareness, and visual-orthographic knowledge were significantly associated with literacy performance. Findings underscore the importance of these cognitive skills for Chinese literacy acquisition. Overall, this study highlights the persistent difficulties of Chinese dyslexic adolescents who seem to have multiple causes for reading and spelling difficulties

Cognitive profiles of Chinese adolescents with dyslexia

The present study sought to identify cognitive abilities that might distinguish Hong Kong Chinese adolescents with and without dyslexia and examined the cognitive profile of dyslexic adolescents in order to better understand this important problem. The performance of 27 Chinese adolescents with childhood diagnoses of dyslexia was compared with 27 adolescents of the same chronological age (CA) and 27 of matched reading level (RL) on measures of literacy and cognitive abilities: Chinese word reading, one-minute reading, reading comprehension, dictation, verbal short-term memory, rapid naming, visual-orthographic knowledge, morphological and phonological awareness. The results indicated that the dyslexic group scored lower than the CA group, but similar to the RL group, especially in the areas of rapid naming, visual-orthographic knowledge and morphological awareness, with over half having multiple deficits exhibited 2 or more cognitive areas. Furthermore, the number of cognitive deficits was associated with the degree of reading and spelling impairment. These findings suggest that adolescents with childhood diagnoses of dyslexia have persistent literacy difficulties and seem to have multiple causes for reading difficulties in Chinese. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.link_to_subscribed_fulltex