Cross-linguistic transfer in bilinguals reading in two alphabetic orthographies: The grain size accommodation hypothesis

Published online: 12 April 2017Reading acquisition is one of the most complex and demanding learning processes faced by children in their first years of schooling. If reading acquisition is challenging in one language, how is it when reading is acquired simultaneously in two languages? What is the impact of bilingualism on the development of literacy? We review behavioral and neuroimaging evidence from alphabetic writing systems suggesting that early bilingualism modulates reading development. Particularly, we show that cross-linguistic variations and cross-linguistic transfer affect bilingual reading strategies as well as their cognitive underpinnings. We stress the fact that the impact of bilingualism on literacy acquisition depends on the specific combination of languages learned and does not manifest itself similarly across bilingual populations. We argue that these differences can be explained by variations due to orthographic depth in the grain sizes used to perform reading and reading-related tasks. Overall, we propose novel hypotheses to shed light on the behavioral and neural variability observed in reading skills among bilinguals.This work was supported by the European commission (BILITERACY- SH4, ERC-2011-ADG) and the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, Madrid, Spain (Grant Nos. PSI20153653383P to M.L., PSI20153673533R to M.C., and SEV3201530490 to the Basque Center on Brain and Language Cognition)

Learning to Read Bilingually Modulates the Manifestations of Dyslexia in Adults

Published online: 28 Mar 2018According to the Grain Size Accommodation hypothesis (Lallier & Carreiras, 2017), learning to read in two languages differing in orthographic consistency leads to a cross-linguistic modulation of reading and spelling processes. Here, we test the prediction that bilingualism may influence the manifestations of dyslexia. We compared the deficits of English monolingual and early Welsh–English bilingual dyslexic adults on reading and spelling irregular English words and English-like pseudowords. As predicted, monolinguals were relatively more impaired in reading pseudowords than irregular words, whereas the opposite was true for bilinguals. Moreover, monolinguals showed stronger sublexical processing deficits than bilinguals and were poorer spellers overall. This study shows that early bilingual reading experience has long-lasting effects on the manifestations of dyslexia in adulthood. It demonstrates that learning to read in a consistent language like Welsh in addition to English gives bilingual dyslexic adults an advantage in English literacy tasks strongly relying on phonological processing.This research was funded by the Fyssen Foundation, the European Commission (FP7-PEOPLE-2010-IEF, Proposal N°274352, BIRD, to M.L) the European Research Council (ERC advanced grant, BILITERACY, to M.C., and ERC- 209704 to G.T.), the Spanish government (PSI2015-65338-P to M.L, and PSI2015-67353-R to M.C.), and the Economic and Social Research Council UK (RES-E024556-1 to G.T.). BCBL acknowledges funding from Ayuda Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa SEV-2015-0490

Compensatory cross‑modal effects of sentence context on visual word recognition in adults

Published online: 11 February 2021Reading involves mapping combinations of a learned visual code (letters) onto meaning. Previous studies have shown that when visual word recognition is challenged by visual degradation, one way to mitigate these negative effects is to provide "top–down" contextual support through a written congruent sentence context. Crowding is a naturally occurring visual phenomenon that impairs object recognition and also affects the recognition of written stimuli during reading. Thus, access to a supporting semantic context via a written text is vulnerable to the detrimental impact of crowding on letters and words. Here, we suggest that an auditory sentence context may provide an alternative source of semantic information that is not influenced by crowding, thus providing “top–down” support cross-modally. The goal of the current study was to investigate whether adult readers can cross-modally compensate for crowding in visual word recognition using an auditory sentence context. The results show a significant cross-modal interaction between the congruency of the auditory sentence context and visual crowding, suggesting that interactions can occur across multiple levels of processing and across different modalities to support reading processes. These findings highlight the need for reading models to specify in greater detail how top–down, cross-modal and interactive mechanisms may allow readers to compensate for deficiencies at early stages of visual processing.This research is supported by the Basque Government through the BERC 2018-2021 program; the Spanish State Research Agency through BCBL Severo Ochoa excellence accreditation (SEV-2015-0490); the "Programa Estatal de Promoción del Talento y su Empleabilidad en I+D+i" fellowship, reference number: PRE2018-083945" to C.C; funding from European Union's Horizon 2020 Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No-79954 to S.G.; and the grants from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, Ramon y Cajal-RYC-2015-1735 and Plan Nacional-RTI2018-096242-B-I0 to M.L

Management consulting effectiveness : contribution of the working alliance and the consultant's attachment orientation

Abstract : Despite growing interests in understanding the effectiveness of consulting in organizational settings, the contribution of individual and interpersonal factors suggested in the literature has yet to be determined. This article examines the relationship between the client-consultant working alliance, the consultant’s attachment orientation and consulting effectiveness from the consultant’s viewpoint. Self-report questionnaires were administered to 193 internal and external consultants in Canada. The hierarchical regression analyses suggested that the professional agreement dimension of the working alliance was the strongest predictor of consulting effectiveness as perceived by consultants, in terms of both process and outcomes. Additionally, the consultant’s attachment orientation, whether anxious or avoidant, moderated the associations between the working alliance and consulting effectiveness. These findings shed new light on factors contributing to consulting effectiveness from the consultant’s perspective and pave the way for innovative avenues in consultants’ training and professional practice development

Does the visual attention span play a role in the morphological processing of orthographic stimuli?

Article first published online: October 22, 2018We investigated whether the link between visual attention (VA) span and reading is modulated by the presence of morphemes. Second and fourth grade children, with Basque as their first language, named morphologically complex and simple words and pseudowords, and performed a task measuring VA span. The influence of VA span skills on reading was modulated by the presence of morphemes in naming speed measures. In addition, fourth grade children with a larger VA span showed larger lexicality effects (pseudoword-word reading times) only for morphologically simple stimuli. Results are interpreted as support for the notion that both transparency and morphological complexity are important factors modulating the impact of VA span skills on reading.The authors acknowledge financial support from the Basque Government (PRE_2015_2_0049 to A. A.), the European Research Council (ERC-2011-ADG-295362 to M.C.), and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (PSI20153653383 P to M.L., PSI20153673533R to M. C, and SEV-2015-490 awarded to the BCBL through the “Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres/ Units of Excellence in R&D”)

Efficacité de la consultation selon la perspective du consultant : mesure et contribution de l'alliance de travail et de la théorie de l'attachement

La présente thèse poursuit l’objectif de mesurer et d’expliquer l’efficacité de la consultation en gestion selon la perspective riche et nuancée du praticien. Le premier objectif spécifique vise à élaborer et à valider un nouvel instrument de mesure de l’efficacité de la consultation en gestion. Pour y parvenir, le Questionnaire d’efficacité de la consultation, version consultant (QEC-CO), a été développé à partir d’une recension exhaustive de la documentation. Son contenu été examiné par un processus itératif comprenant un examen d’un jury composé d’experts de la consultation en gestion et un prétest auprès de consultants en gestion. Deux échantillons de consultants ont été recrutés de façon subséquente afin de procéder à la validation de l’instrument. Ainsi, les analyses factorielles exploratoires menées sur la version expérimentale du QEC-CO en 30 items auprès du premier échantillon de 116 consultants ont permis de proposer une structure en 14 items. L’analyse factorielle confirmatoire réalisée auprès du second échantillon de 207 consultants permet de confirmer cette structure et de conclure à un modèle de second ordre. La structure du QEC-CO en 14 items se répartis sur deux facteurs, soit la Qualité de la démarche et les Résultats à valeur ajoutée. Les analyses de fidélité révèlent des coefficients de cohérence interne globaux et propres à chaque facteur satisfaisants. Les qualités psychométriques du QEC-CO en font un nouvel instrument pertinent et prometteur, tant pour des visées empiriques que pratiques. Le second objectif spécifique de la thèse est d’explorer la contribution à l’efficacité de la consultation de deux de ses facteurs explicatifs présumés, soit l’alliance de travail client-consultant et l’attachement du consultant, à titre de caractéristique individuelle du consultant. Outre l’observation des liens directs entre les variables, le rôle spécifique de l’alliance de travail à titre de variable médiatrice ou modératrice des liens entre l’attachement du consultant et l’efficacité de la consultation est également examiné. Ainsi, 207 consultants en gestion ont complété le QEC-CO, le Relation client-consultant, version consultant (RCC-CO), une version adaptée au milieu de travail du questionnaire d’attachement ECR-12 et la version française du Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale - Form C, à des fins de contrôle de la désirabilité sociale. Les analyses de corrélations et de régressions linéaires multiples hiérarchiques révèlent d’importantes associations directes entre l’alliance de travail et l’efficacité de la consultation, où la dimension de l’Entente professionnelle exerce un rôle primordial. Les résultats font également valoir le rôle modérateur de l’entente professionnelle dans le lien entre l’attachement empreint d’évitement du consultant et l’efficacité de la consultation. Ce faisant, l’étude met en exergue l’importance pour le consultant d’établir une entente professionnelle de qualité pour atteindre l’efficacité. Les professionnels tout comme les chercheurs bénéficient des résultats de la présente thèse tant par une meilleure compréhension des facteurs expliquant l’efficacité de la consultation que par la disponibilité d’un nouvel instrument de mesure accessible pouvant mesurer de façon plus objective la consultation efficace

The Deployment of Young Readers´ Visual Attention across Orthographic Strings: The Influence of Stems and Suffixes

Published online: 27 Apr 2020The goal of the paper was to investigate whether morphological units – stems and suffixes – influence orthographic processing by modulating visual attention demands to the task. Orthographic processing was measured with a visual one-back task requiring letters to be detected within pseudowords not including stems/suffixes, or containing real stems or real suffixes. Fourth grade children (between 9.5 and 10.5 years old) who read in a transparent orthography of a morphologically rich and agglutinative language (Basque) were tested. The results showed that the presence of morphemes in the strings did not improve letter detection performance though it slightly modulated the distribution of visual attention, showing a bias toward the processing of central letters in the presence of a stem. We suggest that the presence of highly regular and recurrent structures prioritizes stem identification, which when achieved, reduces visual attention deployment across the remaining letters.The authors acknowledge financial support from the Basque Government (PRE_2015_2_0049 to A. A.), the European Research Council (ERC-2011-ADG-295362 to M.C.), the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (PSI20153653383P to M.L., PSI20153673533R to M. C, and SEV-2015-490 awarded to the BCBL through the “Severo Ochoa Program for Centers/Units of Excellence in R&D”). This research is also supported by the Basque Government through the BERC 2018-2021