Reading and Math Achievement in Children With Dyslexia, Developmental Language Disorder, or Typical Development: Achievement Gaps Persist From Second Through Fourth Grades

We examined how children (n=448) who met research criteria for separate vs. co-occurring DLD and dyslexia performed on school-based measures of academic functioning in reading and math between second and fourth grades. Growth curve models were used to examine the overall form of growth and differences between groups. Children with DLD and/or dyslexia in second grade showed early and persistent deficits on school-administered measures of reading and math. In second grade, children with typical development (TD) scored significantly higher than all other groups, children with DLD+dyslexia scored significantly lower than all other groups, and children with dyslexia-only and DLD-only did not differ from each other. Only small differences in growth rates were observed, and gaps in second grade did not close. Few children (20-27%) meeting research criteria for dyslexia and/or DLD had received specialized support services. Children with DLD-only received services at less than half the rate of the dyslexia groups, despite similar levels of academic performance. Evidence of significant and persistent functional impacts on academic achievement support the validity of standard research criteria for dyslexia and DLD. Low rates of reported support services in these children—especially those with DLD-only—highlight the need to raise awareness of these disorders

Vocabulary Intervention and Novel Word Learning

A prediction of the Reading Systems Framework (RSF) (Perfetti & Stafura, 2014) was tested, namely that lexical knowledge causally relates to text comprehension, which then supports semantic inferencing about novel words in the text. This indirect causal relationship could underly the known association between existing vocabulary and incidental word learning. The effect of lexical semantic intervention was investigated on semantic inferencing about novel words, as mediated by comprehension of text containing both taught and novel words. Participants were English-speaking children (n=23) in 6th grade (M=11;05). Following intervention, participants read texts containing taught words and non-words (treated condition). After reading, they responded to questions about text meaning and meaning of the non-words. Performance was compared within-subjects to a condition in which words in the text were not taught (untreated condition). A path-analytic analysis for within participant mediation showed that the effects of lexical semantics intervention on novel word learning, through an indirect route via text comprehension, was significant (ab=0.417, [0.22, 1.07]. Results supported the existence of an indirect pathway between lexical semantics intervention and incidental word learning, mediated by text comprehension, as predicted by the RSF. This is a possible mechanism for a ‘Matthew effect’ for vocabulary

Reading and math achievement in children with dyslexia, developmental language disorder, or typical development

Syntax for data analysis reported in Duff, Hendricks, Fitton, & Adlof (2020). Syntax originally written by Lisa Fitton in R Markdown

Examining the associations between parent concerns and school-age children’s language and reading abilities: A comparison of samples recruited for in-school vs. online participation.

Purpose: To examine the relationship between parent concerns about children’s oral language, reading, and related skills and their children’s performance on standardized assessments of language and reading, with a particular focus on whether those relationships differed between children recruited for in-school versus remote participation. Methods: This study used data from a larger, longitudinal project focused on children with and without developmental language disorder (DLD) and/or dyslexia. The “in-school” sample (n = 133) completed assessments in-person before the COVID-19 school closures, and the “remote” sample (n = 84) recruited via advertisements completed all assessments online. Parents completed a checklist of concerns regarding language and literacy development, attention and executive functions. All children completed norm-referenced assessments of language and reading. Results: The two recruitment strategies yielded samples that differed in racial diversity (higher in the in-school sample), caregiver education levels and financial resources (higher in the remote sample), and word reading test scores (higher in the remote sample). Parents in both samples reported higher levels of concerns about literacy skills than oral language skills, and the correlation between parent concerns about literacy and children’s word reading test scores was stronger than the correlation between parent concerns about oral language and children’s language test scores. We did not find higher level of concerns or a higher correlation between concerns and reading and language performance in the remote sample than the in-school sample. Conclusions: Researchers should be aware of the impact of different recruitment strategies on sample attainment. Referral models that rely on parent and teacher concerns about oral language to prompt a language evaluation may contribute to low rates of identification of children who meet criteria for DLD. Future research can consider parent concerns about literacy, attention, and executive functions as indicators of a need for language evaluation, especially considering the high comorbidity between language and other developmental disorders