Chinese dyslexic children’s learning of an orthographically transparent language: Evidence for a facilitation effect.

Abstract

The aim of the present research is to compare phonological abilities and visuo-spatial abilities in Chinese dyslexic children (CDC) vs. Italian dyslexic children (IDC). Specifically, 10 CDC, 10 IDC, 10 Chinese and 10 Italian children with typical development (TD) were administered instruments to assess reading, writing, visual-perceptual, and visual-spatial memory abilities. CDC showed lower performance in the reading task, in the text and sentence dictation tasks, in the visual-perceptual, visual-motor integration, and visual-spatial memory tasks, as compared to Chinese TD. IDC made more errors in the reading task and more phonological errors in the text and in the sentence dictation tasks, as compared to the Italian TD, but no significant differences emerged in visual-perceptual, visual-motor integration and visual-spatial memory abilities. The most important result is that CDC made significantly less errors in the reading task and in the phonological dictation task, despite they performed worse in the visual-perceptual, visual-motor integration and visual-spatial memory tasks, as compared to IDC. Indeed, CDC’ perceptual deficits do not appear to impair learning of reading and writing in a language with transparent orthography, despite those perceptual deficits represent a fundamental component of Chinese dyslexic children’s profile. Educational and practical implications are discussed.