Search

Earlier results from the Jyvaskyla Longitudinal Study of Dyslexia showed that newborn event-related potentials (ERPs) of children with and without familial risk for dyslexia were associated with receptive language and verbal memory skills between 2.5 and 5 years of age. We further examined whether these ERPs (responses to synthetic consonant-vowel syllables /ba/, /da/, /ga/; presented equiprobably with 3,910-7,285 ms interstimulus intervals) predict later pre-reading skills measured before the onset of school (6.5 years of age). In line with our earlier results, the at-risk children (N = 11) with atypical speech processing in the right hemisphere (a slower shift in polarity from positivity to negativity in responses to /ga/ at 540-630 ms) scored significantly lower in phonological skills, rapid naming, and letter knowledge than the control children (N = 10) without enhanced right hemispheric speech processing. These results further extend our earlier findings of newborn ERPs in predicting poorer language skills. These consistent differences in ERPs to speech sounds may have applications in the future for the early identification of children at risk for developmental language problems. This would facilitate well-directed intervention even before reading problems are typically diagnosed. (Contains 2 figures and 1 table.)

Ninety-one Finnish preschoolers were assessed prior to receiving formal reading instruction. Verbal and nonverbal measures were used as predictors for the time of instruction required to accurately decode pseudowords. Phonological awareness differentiated precocious decoders from early decoders and ordinary decoders. Late decoders differed from others in visual analogical reasoning. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

Develops structural equation models to examine the connections between reading abilities and phonological skills. Finds that skills related to reading at preschool age are similar and have the same relations in a transparent language such as Finnish as they do in English; however, differences exist, especially in the relations between phonemic awareness skills and reading, that may be language specific. (RS)

Purpose: The authors investigated the importance of phonemic length discrimination ability on reading and spelling skills among children with reading disabilities and familial risk for dyslexia and among children with typical reading skills, as well as the role of prereading skills in reading and spelling development in children with reading disabilities. Method: Finnish children with reading disabilities and discrimination problems (RDDP, n = 13), children with reading disabilities and typical discrimination abilities (RDTD, n = 27), and children with typical reading skills (TR, n = 140) were assessed between the ages of 1 and 6.5 years for language, phonological awareness, IQ, verbal memory, and rapid automatized naming. IQ, discrimination ability, and reading and spelling skills were assessed in the second grade. Statistical differences were examined at the group level. Results: The RDDP group was poorer in spelling accuracy compared with the other groups. The RDDP group's prereading skills were poorer than those of the RDTD group. In regression analyses, the RDDP group's poor spelling skills were partially explained by their discrimination ability. Conclusion: Prereading skills are connected to poor reading skills, but phonemic length discrimination ability plays a critical role in spelling accuracy problems among children with reading disabilities and with familial risk for dyslexia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined the double-deficit hypothesis in Finnish. One hundred five Finnish children with high familial risk for dyslexia and 90 children with low family risk were followed from the age of 3½ years until Grade 3. Children's phonological awareness, rapid naming speed, text reading, and spelling were assessed. A deficit in rapid automatized naming (RAN) predicted slow reading speed across time and spelling difficulties after Grade 1. A deficit in phonological awareness predicted difficulties in spelling, but only in the familial risk sample. The effect of familial risk was significant in the development of phonological awareness, RAN, reading, and spelling. Our findings suggest that the basic premise of the double-deficit hypothesis—that RAN and phonological awareness are separable deficits with different effects on reading and spelling outcomes—holds also in a consistent orthography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, 91 Finnish-speaking preschoolers (ranging in age from 6.4 to 7.4 years) were tested by using 2 structural equation models. None of the participants had entered school at the time of the study because the age of school entry in Finland is 7 years. The structural equation models were built particularly to examine the connections between children's reading abilities and their phonological skills. The main results of this study show that, in a very transparent language such as Finnish, the model that emphasized sensitivity to the phonological structure of the word as the prerequisite for learning to read fit our data well. The other model, which was likewise theoretically and statistically quite accessible, implied, by contrast, the reciprocity between learning to read and the emergence of phonemic awareness. The results of this study suggest that skills related to reading at preschool age are in many respects the same and have the same relations in a transparent language such as Finnish as they do in English. However, there also seem to be differences, especially in the relations between phonemic awareness skills and reading that may be language specific and require further investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]