(Dis)connections between specific language impairment and dyslexia in Chinese

Poster Session: no. 26P.40Specific language impairment (SLI) and dyslexia describe language-learning impairments that occur in the absence of a sensory, cognitive, or psychosocial impairment. SLI is primarily defined by an impairment in oral language, and dyslexia by a deficit in the reading of written words. SLI and dyslexia co-occur in school-age children learning English, with rates ranging from 17% to 75%. For children learning Chinese, SLI and dyslexia also co-occur. Wong et al. (2010) first reported on the presence of dyslexia in a clinical sample of 6- to 11-year-old school-age children with SLI. The study compared the reading-related cognitive skills of children with SLI and dyslexia (SLI-D) with 2 groups of children …postprin

Reading comprehension and its component skills in children with SLI and children with dyslexia

Poster session 1: LiteracyThe Poster Abstract Book can be viewed at: http://www.iascl2014.org/files/6014/0483/0776/Posters_Final.pdfReading comprehension involves word decoding and oral language comprehension (Hoover and Gough, 1990). Young readers with dyslexia are at risk for reading-comprehension impairment. Reading-comprehension impairment also happens in children without wordreading deficits, and about 30% of these children is language-impaired. Reading comprehension involves higher-order skills of working memory, inferencing, and comprehension monitoring (Cain & Oakhill, 2007). This study aims to examine whether Chinese children with specific language impairment (SLI) and children with dyslexia demonstrate difficulties in these skills. Ninety-five eight-year-old Primary 2 children participated in this study. Using normreferenced measures, these children were diagnosed as either normal (n=42), SLI (n=28), dyslexia (N=10), or SLI-dyslexia (n=19) at the end of Primary 1. The children completed tasks examining word reading, reading comprehension, written grammar, working memory, comprehension monitoring and literal and inferential reading comprehension of texts in which word and grammar levels were controlled. Age and Ravens were used as covariates in all MANOVA and ANOVA analyses. In both word reading and reading comprehension, the normal group outperformed the three atypical groups and the SLI group scored higher than the dyslexic group. In word reading, the SLI and the dyslexia group performed better than the co-morbid group, and in reading comprehension, only the SLI group performed better than the co-morbid group. For written grammar, the normal group again performed better than the three atypical groups, and the SLI and dyslexia group outperformed the co-morbid group. For literal and inferential comprehension, the normal group performed better than the SLI and co-morbid group, and the same pattern of results was found for comprehension monitoring and working memory. The dyslexia group did not perform worse than the normal group in these higher-order skills. These results suggest different focus of reading comprehension intervention for children with SLI and children with dyslexia. (Project funded by Hong Kong RGC755110) Hoover, W. A. & Gough, P. B. (1990). The simple view of reading. Reading and Writing, 2, 127-160. Oakhill, J. V., & Cain, K. (2004). The development of comprehension skills. In T. Nunes & P. Bryant (eds). Handbook of children’s literacy, 155-180.published_or_final_versio

(Dis)connections between specific language impairment and dyslexia in Chinese

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Relationships between SLI & dyslexia: the case for Chinese

Language in Infants, Toddlers, and Preschoolers - Poster Board 313: no. 916

Word reading in Chinese kindergarteners with and without specific language impairment (SLI)

RRC Poster Presentations: no. 1

In search of shared deficits underlying SLI and dyslexia in Chinese

Poster PresentationChildren with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) are at heightened risk for dyslexia. Some studies have found SLI children with concomitant dyslexia poorer at discriminating fine-grained auditory stimuli; in separate samples of SLI and reading-impaired children, others have found poorer quality of phonological representations. We asked whether auditory frequency discrimination (FD), frequency modulation (FM) detection and speech gating, putative measures of these skills, could identify SLI children ‘at-risk’ for dyslexia. Cantonese-speaking children aged 5-6 years were classified as SLI+ (n=15), SLI- (n=22), NL+ (n=14), or NL- (n=18) (+ and – denote at-risk status for dyslexia; NL denotes Normal Language). Group differences were evident on FM: SLI+ and SLI- had worse thresholds than NL+ and NL-, which did not differ from each other. SLI- children performed significantly less well on speech gating than the NL+ group, but did not differ from NL- or SLI+. These results suggest that poor FM and poor phonological representations might characterize SLI but not ‘at-risk’ status for dyslexia in Cantonese-Chinese children.link_to_OA_fulltex

Shared and unique predictors for oral language and word reading in Chinese 5-year-old children

Poster Presentatio

Word reading in Chinese kindergarten children with SLI

Poster PresentationThe 17th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading (SSSR 2010), Berlin, Germany, 7-10 July 2010

Temporal patterns of charcoal burning suicides among the working age population in Hong Kong SAR: the influence of economic activity status and sex

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Charcoal burning in a sealed room has recently emerged as the second most common suicide means in Hong Kong, causing approximately 200 deaths each year. As charcoal burning suicide victims have a unique sociodemographic profile (i.e., predominantly economically active men), they may commit suicide at specific times. However, little is known about the temporal patterns of charcoal burning suicides.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Suicide data from 2001 to 2008 on victims of usual working age (20–59) were obtained from the registered death files of the Census and Statistics Department of Hong Kong. A total of 1649 cases of charcoal burning suicide were analyzed using a two-step procedure, which first examined the temporal asymmetries in the incidence of suicide, and second investigated whether these asymmetries were influenced by sex and/or economic activity status. Poisson regression analyses were employed to model the monthly and daily patterns of suicide by economic activity status and sex.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our findings revealed pronounced monthly and daily temporal variations in the pattern of charcoal burning suicides in Hong Kong. Consistent with previous findings on overall suicide deaths, there was an overall spring peak in April, and Monday was the common high risk day for all groups. Although sex determined the pattern of variation in charcoal burning suicides, the magnitude of the variation was influenced by the economic activity status of the victims.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The traditional classification of suicide methods as either violent or nonviolent tends to elide the temporal variations of specific methods. The interaction between sex and economic activity status observed in the present study indicates that sex should be taken into consideration when investigating the influence of economic activity status on temporal variations of suicide. This finding also suggests that suicide prevention efforts should be both time- and subgroup-specific.</p