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Perceived negative consequences of dyslexia entail the degree to which an individual perceives negative outcomes, such as low academic achievement or feelings of anxiety and depression, and attributes these experiences to the disorder. In the current study, we examined how perceived consequences of dyslexia are influenced by person and environmental factors. Perceived consequences were evaluated for the academic domain and the domain of mental health (depression, anxiety). Participants were 123 Dutch students with dyslexia. Cognitive person factors (literacy skills and verbal IQ), socio-emotional person factors (self-perceived literacy skills and coping ability), and environmental factors (literacy demands, support from the institution, reactions of teachers and peers) were included as predictors. Results indicated that perceived negative consequences were not related to cognitive person factors. In contrast, better self-perceived literacy skills were associated with less perceived negative consequences in all domains (academic, depression, anxiety) and coping contributed to depression consequences. With respect to environmental factors, negative reactions in the academic environment contributed to perceived negative consequences of depression and anxiety. As such, findings indicate that individuals with dyslexia perceive negative consequences in the academic, anxiety, and depression domains which cannot be fully accounted for by their objective reading and writing problems. These factors should feature more prominently in future studies on dyslexia and should be addressed in treatment of dyslexia as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When dyslexia is diagnosed late, the question is whether this is due to late‐emerging (LE) or late‐identified (LI) problems. In a random selection of dyslexia‐diagnosis case files we distinguished early‐diagnosed (Grade 1–3, n = 116) and late‐diagnosed (Grade 4–6) dyslexia. The late‐diagnosed files were divided into LE (n = 54) and LI dyslexia (n = 45). The LE group consisted of children whose national‐curriculum literacy outcomes did not warrant referral for dyslexia diagnosis in Grades 1–2; the LI group of children whose literacy outcomes did, but who were referred for diagnostic assessment after Grade 3. At the time of diagnosis, the percentage of poor performers on word‐level literacy measures generally did not differ between the groups. Only the LE group contained fewer poor performers than the early‐diagnosed and LI group on some word‐reading measures. All groups showed similar distributions of phonological difficulties. There were no indications of compensation through vocabulary, memory or IQ in either late‐diagnosed group. Our diagnosis‐based study confirms and extends previous research‐based studies on LE dyslexia. Moreover, it shows that LI dyslexia exists, which can be regarded as the existence of instructional casualties. The findings speak to issues of identification, diagnosis and compensation and call for further efforts to improve the early identification of dyslexia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two explanations for resolving dyslexia were investigated, one assuming resolving underlying deficits and another assuming compensatory mechanisms based on cognitive strengths. Thirty-six Dutch gifted secondary-school students with either persistent (n = 18) or resolving (n = 18) dyslexia participated. Groups, matched on IQ, were assessed on dyslexia- and intelligence-related cognitive risk and protective factors. Findings for the risk factors showed support for both the resolving-deficit and compensatory-mechanism theories: Resolving and persistent groups were comparable on phoneme deletion and nonalphanumeric rapid automatized naming, but resolvers outperformed students with persistent dyslexia on spoonerisms and alphanumeric rapid automatized naming. For the protective factors, resolvers consistently showed more pronounced cognitive strengths in verbal areas relevant for literacy development, which is in line with the compensatory-mechanism theory. We conclude that, besides underlying deficits resolving to some extent, compensation is a plausible explanation for resolving literacy difficulties in gifted students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic accommodations associated with a diagnosis of dyslexia might be incentives for college students without reading or spelling difficulties to feign dyslexia and obtain the diagnosis unfairly. In the current study we examined malingering practices by comparing the performance of college students instructed to malinger dyslexia (n = 28) to that of students actually diagnosed with dyslexia (n = 16). We also included a control group of students without reading and spelling difficulties (n = 28). The test battery included tasks tapping literacy skills as well as underlying cognitive skills associated with literacy outcomes. These tasks are commonly used in diagnosing dyslexia. We examined patterns in the performance of malingerers across tasks and tested whether malingerers could be identified based on their performance on a limited number of tasks. Results indicated that malingerers scored significantly lower than students with dyslexia on reading and spelling skills; i.e., the core characteristics of dyslexia. Especially reading performance was extremely low and not in line with students’ age and level of education. Findings for underlying cognitive skills were mixed. Overall, malingerers scored lower than students with dyslexia on tasks tapping mainly speed, whereas the two groups did not differ on tasks reflecting mainly accuracy. Based on word and pseudoword reading and letter and digit naming, the three groups could be distinguished with reasonable sensitivity and specificity. In all, results indicate that college students seem to understand on which tasks they should feign dyslexia, but tend to exaggerate difficulties on these tasks to the point where diagnosticians should mistrust performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study related the non-word repetition (NWR) abilities of 4-year-old children at-risk of dyslexia and children with specific language impairment (SLI) to their reading abilities at age eight. The results show that the SLI group obtained the lowest NWR score and the at-risk group performed in-between the control and SLI group. Approximately half of the at-risk and SLI group showed reading difficulties. Literacy and NWR abilities were correlated for the at-risk group, but not for the SLI group. The findings point toward differences between the groups and suggest that dyslexia and SLI should not be treated as a similar disorder. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although poor Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) is a risk factor for reading and/or spelling difficulties (RSD) as well as for mathematical difficulties (MD), many questions surround this relationship. The main objective of the present study was to obtain insight in the relationship between alphanumeric vs. non-alphanumeric RAN and reading/spelling and mathematics in groups of 7-to-10-year-old children with RSD, MD, both RSD + MD, and in typically developing (TD) children. Analyses of variance between the groups showed that the RSD and comorbid (RSD + MD) groups were impaired on both alphanumeric and non-alphanumeric RAN, whereas the MD group was impaired only on non-alphanumeric RAN. Furthermore, non-alphanumeric RAN correlated with all measures except spelling, whereas alphanumeric RAN correlated with the reading and spelling measures only. These findings point towards different/additional cognitive processes needed in non-alphanumeric RAN compared to alphanumeric RAN, which affects the relationship with literacy and math. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated how gifted children with dyslexia might be able to mask literacy problems and the role of possible compensatory mechanisms. The sample consisted of 121 Dutch primary school children that were divided over four groups (typically developing [TD] children, children with dyslexia, gifted children, gifted children with dyslexia). The test battery included measures of literacy (reading/spelling) and cognitive abilities related to literacy and language (phonological awareness [PA], rapid automatized naming [RAN], verbal short-term memory [VSTM], working memory [WM], grammar, and vocabulary). It was hypothesized that gifted children with dyslexia would outperform children with dyslexia on literacy tests. In addition, a core-deficit model including dyslexia-related weaknesses and a compensational model involving giftedness-related strengths were tested using Bayesian statistics to explain their reading/spelling performance. Gifted children with dyslexia performed on all literacy tests in between children with dyslexia and TD children. Their cognitive profile showed signs of weaknesses in PA and RAN and strengths in VSTM, WM, and language skills. Findings indicate that phonology is a risk factor for gifted children with dyslexia, but this is moderated by other skills such as WM, grammar, and vocabulary, providing opportunities for compensation of a cognitive deficit and masking of literacy difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]