Search

The current study aims to examine prosodic sensitivity in Chinese children with dyslexia and its relation to Chinese reading in children with and without dyslexia. A total of 172 Chinese children from third grade to sixth grade in Taiwanese primary schools were recruited. Thirty (14 male) children were identified as having dyslexia, and the remaining children (N = 142; 67 male) were typically developing children matched with those with dyslexia as carefully as possible with respect to school, grade, and gender. Our results indicated that group differences were found for all three types of prosodic sensitivity. Moderation analyses showed that group had no significant interaction with prosodic sensitivity in predicting Chinese reading, so the participants in the two groups were combined in the following analyses. The results of the stepwise regression analyses showed that only lexical tone awareness could significantly predict Chinese character reading after controlling for phonological awareness, while only intonation awareness could significantly predict reading comprehension after controlling for Chinese character reading. The results provide preliminary evidence on the issue of prosodic sensitivity in Chinese children with dyslexia and its role in Chinese reading, which might provide a novel approach to the teaching of Chinese languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to compare anxiety and depression among male and female Chinese children with and without reading disabilities (RDs) and to examine the diverse impacts of anxiety and depression on children's reading comprehension. A total of 132 Chinese children from third to sixth grade living in Taiwan were recruited; half had RD, and the other half were typically developing children. Our results from the first analysis revealed that the anxiety level of female children with RD was significantly higher than that of the other three groups of participants, while the depression level of typically developing children was significantly lower than that of children with RD in general. Additionally, our results regarding the predictive abilities of gender and anxiety for reading comprehension as well as the moderating effect of gender on the ability of anxiety to predict reading comprehension were all statistically significant for the typically developing group but not the RD group. These differences between these two groups were further confirmed by multi-group analysis. Our results enhance the existing knowledge on Chinese children with RD and can increase practitioners' awareness of the possibility of higher levels of anxious and depressive symptoms among these children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The co-morbidity of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and reading disorder (RD) is more frequent than expected. This investigation assessed the potential uniqueness of the co-morbidity of ADHD and RD and extended existing findings to the Chinese language. A parallel group design with a post hoc analysis of group differences was employed to compare 4 groups of children (30 with ADHD, 33 with RD, 28 with ADHD + RD, and 30 typically developing) regarding their reading comprehension, attention, reading-related abilities, and cognitive abilities. The findings indicated that children with RD and/or ADHD symptom(s) exhibited diverse cognitive profiles, and the distinguishing factor contributed to different inhibitions. Additionally, Chinese-speaking children with the co-morbid symptoms of RD and ADHD demonstrated greater deficits in auditory working memory and rapid naming than did the pure-deficit groups. Furthermore, although problems with phonological awareness were similar between the 2 groups, the deficiency of orthographic knowledge was more severe in children with RD than in the co-morbid group. The ADHD + RD group's cognitive and reading-related abilities displayed a relatively complicated pattern that should be considered in the diagnosis of either RD or ADHD and their remediation design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There is emerging evidence that individuals with developmental dyslexia show deficits in visual–spatial attention. This study focused on visual searches and examined whether visual search deficits would be found in Chinese children with dyslexia. More importantly, we examined the associations between dyslexia and distinct types of visual searches, to determine whether deficits are specific to some visual searches but not others. Methods: The dyslexic children and their age‐matched typical peers completed both the inefficient and relatively efficient search tasks. Results: The dyslexic children were generally impaired in visual searches, although the deficit in inefficient searches was more severe than in efficient searches. After phonological awareness, working memory and nonverbal IQ were considered; inefficient searches were found to be selectively impaired. Conclusions: These findings suggest that visual search deficits in dyslexia are universal across alphabetic and logographic writing systems. They highlight the importance of further study on the role of top‐down attention on reading. Highlights: What is already known about this topicReading difficulties are related to impairment of visual–spatial attention.Dyslexic readers of alphabetic orthographies show deficits in visual searches, especially inefficient searches.Visual skills are particularly important for reading in Chinese, a logographic writing system known for visual complexity and lacking of grapheme–phoneme correspondence. What this paper addsChinese children with dyslexia showed impaired visual searches compared with typically developing children.Deficits of dyslexic children were more severe in inefficient searches than in efficient ones.After phonological awareness and working memory were considered, visual search dysfunction of dyslexic Chinese children was specific to the inefficient searches. Implications for theory, policy or practiceInefficient visual search skill is uniquely related to dyslexia in Chinese beyond phonological awareness, supporting sensory‐cognitive accounts of dyslexia.Selective impairment in inefficient searches underscores the importance to study top‐down attentional mechanism in reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study focuses on (1) comparing dyslexic and typically developing children's cognitive and behavioural inhibitory abilities; (2) examining the relationship between word recognition, inhibition, and working memory in dyslexic and typically developing children by correlation, regression and path analyses. Participants in the present study were sampled from 3rd and 4th graders in Taiwan. Results indicated that dyslexic and typically developing children did not significantly differ in behavioural inhibition. In contrast, dyslexic children showed significantly lower levels of cognitive inhibition compared to typically developing children. Dyslexic children also showed that only cognitive inhibition significantly contributed to their word recognition, and typically developing children showed similar phenomenon. Finally, models of dyslexic and typically developing children's working memory, inhibition and word recognition were similar in that working memory and cognitive inhibition significantly contributed to word recognition for both dyslexic and typically developing children. Moreover, the contribution of the combination of working memory and inhibition was greater than the contribution of only inhibition; both of typically developing and dyslexic children's working memory showed more contributions than inhibition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Research has shown that paired associate learning (PAL) plays an important role in children's word reading across different languages. However, little is known about the construct of PAL and its relationship with word reading in Chinese children. Methods: A total of 204 second‐year kindergarten children from Mainland China were assessed on measures of PAL, including the four mapping conditions of PAL: visual–verbal, verbal–verbal, visual–visual and verbal–visual PAL. Tasks of working memory (WM), inhibitory control, visual‐motor integration (VMI), phonological awareness, orthographic knowledge and Chinese word reading were also administered to these children. Results: Our results showed that WM, VMI and phonological awareness were unique predictors of PAL, whereas inhibitory control and orthographic knowledge were not. Furthermore, PAL showed an independent contribution to Chinese word reading after controlling for phonological awareness and orthographic knowledge. The mediation analysis showed that PAL was a significant mediator of the association between different cognitive‐linguistic skills and Chinese word reading. Conclusion: Paired associate learning contributes to Chinese word reading over and above phonological awareness and orthographic knowledge. Findings underscore the potential importance of PAL, as distinct from other cognitive‐linguistic skills, for understanding variability in early reading development. Highlights: What is already known about this topicStudies have shown the significant role of PAL in predicting word reading in Chinese.The association between PAL and word reading has been typically interpreted within the phonological processing framework. What this paper addsPAL is a complex construct that involves a wide range of cognitive‐linguistic skills: working memory (WM), visual‐motor integration and phonological awareness.PAL showed a unique contribution to Chinese word reading after controlling for phonological awareness and orthographic knowledge.PAL was found to be a significant mediator of the association between different cognitive‐linguistic skills and Chinese word reading. Implications for theory, policy or practicePAL may be an important aspect of sound and symbol learning for its relationship with word reading in Chinese, suggesting that PAL is an important contributing factor to word‐level reading development.It is possible that using PAL tasks such as mapping sounds with novel animals and/or characters and word games may promote children's word reading development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]