Supplemental Material for Cognitive Deficits in Spanish-Speaking Mexican Children With Developmental Dyslexia

Validation of a screening test based on symbols visual search to detect visuo-attentionnal reading difficulties.

Objectives: Early screening and intervention for developmental dyslexia in children is crucial. This study aimed to identify predictive variables for efficiently screening young elementary school children with developmental dyslexia by examining first and second graders. Methods: A longitudinal observation was conducted with 58 dyslexic children and 82 typically developing children at two time points: the first semester of first grade (T1) and the first semester of second grade (T2). Logistic regression was conducted using word reading, sentence reading, text reading fluency, word writing, and sentence writing as predictive variables. Results: In the first semester of first grade (T1), text reading fluency and word writing were identified as predictive variables, with odds ratios of 1.963 and 2.194, respectively. In the first semester of second grade (T2), word reading, sentence writing, and text reading fluency were confirmed as predictors, with odds ratios of 1.855, 1.913, and 3.938, respectively. Conclusion: This study found that text reading fluency was the most significant predictor for distinguishing between dyslexic and typical children in the early grades. Additionally, word writing was significant in first graders, while word decoding and sentence writing were significant in second graders. These findings may inform the development of effective screening tools for dyslexia in the future.

The aim of this study is to examine, from a descriptive and comparative perspective, the emotional impact of developmental dyslexia on the family members of those who experience it, comparing their performance with control families and with families of individuals with other disorders comorbid with dyslexia, such as dyscalculia and ADHD. Using the Family Opinions Questionnaire (FAOP) with a sample of 128 families, the study analyzed how these families assessed their educational institutions, their parental involvement in education, their approach to their children's writing development, the provision of educational materials, and the encouragement of their children's overall development. Additionally, it evaluated family relationships and stability, comparing the different groups. The results indicated that families with at least one affected member reported high levels of distress and frustration compared to families without these conditions. These families showed little interest in engaging in intellectual activities with their children but actively participated in recreational and interactive activities aimed at strengthening their emotional bond. They valued self-sufficiency and communication, though they tended to experience higher levels of internal conflict. However, it was the families of children with dyslexia who paid the most attention to their children's curricular aspects, mainly due to the specific characteristics of this disorder.

Initial teacher preparation plays a crucial role in identifying and supporting students with special educational needs, such as dyslexia, a disorder that affects English language learning. The purpose of this study was to examine the level of knowledge and difficulties of 124 pre-service English teachers at a public university in Ecuador about dyslexia. Data were collected in three different courses from 6th to 8th level from a public university and analyzed using SPSS 27.0 through descriptive statistics, Chi test, and Kruskall Wallis test, taking into account the participant’s scores from the Knowledge and Beliefs about Developmental Dyslexia Scale (KBDDS). A Spanish-adapted version by Betancor (2022) of the original version by Soriano-Ferrer and Echegaray-Bengoa (2014). The results showed that the participants still did not have enough knowledge about dyslexia. Also, a thorough analysis of gender and level variables was conducted and showed that there was no significant effect. These results suggest the need to promote courses and include the topic of dyslexia for future English teachers in their classes to prepare them to provide more inclusive teaching

In the realm of logographic writing systems, such as Chinese characters, orthographic transparency fundamentally differs from alphabetic languages, posing unique challenges for individuals with developmental dyslexia (DD). This study employed event-related potentials (ERPs) and a masked priming paradigm to investigate how Chinese children with DD compared to typically developing (TD) children in their utilization of orthographic-phonological mapping rules during the processing of pseudocharacters. The findings revealed noteworthy distinctions between TD and DD children. TD children exhibited a robust priming effect in radical priming, characterized by an enhanced N170 (100-200ms) amplitude and a reduced P200 (200-350ms) amplitude, whereas DD children did not display this differentiation. This observation parallels the difficulties faced by DD children in alphabetic languages. Furthermore, the study found a significant positive correlation between the N170 amplitude in the left posterior brain region of Chinese DD children and their orthographic performance: DD children with poorer orthographic awareness exhibited larger N170 amplitudes in this region. The present study sheds light on the challenges Chinese DD children encounter in processing regular sub-character routes, particularly evident in the early stages of orthographic processing. The orthographic deficits of DD children hinder their processing of Chinese orthography, resulting in increased cognitive demands.

Abstract How do children with developmental dyslexia process unattested or ill-formed phonological sequences in their native language? This question warrants attention because these children are primarily characterized by a phonological deficit. In this study, we support the hypothesis that intact phonological grammar allows segmenting and recognizing (pseudo)words through sensitivity to sonority markedness constraints. We administered a lexical decision task in silent reading to 21 French children with developmental dyslexia, comparing them with 21 chronological age-matched and 21 reading level-matched peers. Children were presented with words and pseudowords that either respected or transgressed syllable boundaries (⟨ar*gent⟩, money vs. ⟨a*rgent⟩ vs. ⟨arg*ent⟩). For pseudowords, we manipulated the sonority profiles of unattested intervocalic ⟨C1C2⟩ clusters from unmarked, well-formed (⟨rj⟩ in ⟨yrjyde⟩; high-fall) to marked, ill-formed clusters (⟨vl⟩ in ⟨uvlyde⟩; high-rise). Results confirmed preferences for syllable segmentation in words (⟨ar*gent⟩ is preferred to ⟨a*rgent⟩ or ⟨arg*ent⟩) regardless of distributional properties. We found a sonority projection effect that illustrated a gradient-based preference for sonority markedness constraints with pseudowords. However, pseudowords conforming to expected sonority-based segmentation (⟨yr*jyde⟩ or ⟨u*vlyde⟩) were more difficult to reject, possibly due to interferences from lexical attestedness. We discuss a phonological deficit that does not stem from degraded language-specific or universal phonological representations.

Abstract The study of Hebrew, a non‐European language written in a non‐alphabetic (abjadic) script offers valuable insights into the science of reading beyond the well‐studied alphabetic scripts. Because reading development in Hebrew is shaped by the uniquely Semitic root‐and‐pattern morphology and the abjadic (predominantly consonantal) orthography, our review begins by providing some basic information about the Hebrew language and its writing system. We then outline the developmental phases through which the developing Hebrew reader progresses, as proposed in Share and Bar‐On's Triplex Model, and the central role of phonological and morphological awareness. Finally, we review the research literature on developmental dyslexia in Hebrew within the context of current theories on the underlying perceptual/neurobiological basis of dyslexia (e.g., temporal processing, magnocellular deficits, visual attention span etc.). Here, we draw attention to the problems of comorbidity and the need to go beyond the conventional “whole‐group” approach and address the issue of heterogeneity and subtypes.

Cortical signals have been shown to track acoustic and linguistic properties of continuous speech. This phenomenon has been measured in both children and adults, reflecting speech understanding by adults as well as cognitive functions such as attention and prediction. Furthermore, atypical low-frequency cortical tracking of speech is found in children with phonological difficulties (developmental dyslexia). Accordingly, low-frequency cortical signals may play a critical role in language acquisition. A recent investigation with infants Attaheri et al., 2022 [1] probed cortical tracking mechanisms at the ages of 4, 7 and 11 months as participants listened to sung speech. Results from temporal response function (TRF), phase-amplitude coupling (PAC) and dynamic theta-delta power (PSD) analyses indicated speech envelope tracking and stimulus-related power (PSD) for delta and theta neural signals. Furthermore, delta- and theta-driven PAC was found at all ages, with theta phases displaying stronger PAC with high-frequency amplitudes than delta. The present study tests whether these previous findings replicate in the second half of the full cohort of infants (N = 122) who were participating in this longitudinal study (first half: N = 61, (1); second half: N = 61). In addition to demonstrating good replication, we investigate whether cortical tracking in the first year of life predicts later language acquisition for the full cohort (122 infants recruited, 113 retained) using both infant-led and parent-estimated measures and multivariate and univariate analyses. Increased delta cortical tracking in the univariate analyses, increased ~2Hz PSD power and stronger theta-gamma PAC in both multivariate and univariate analyses were related to better language outcomes using both infant-led and parent-estimated measures. By contrast, increased ~4Hz PSD power in the multi-variate analyses, increased delta-beta PAC and a higher theta/delta power ratio in the multi-variate analyses were related to worse language outcomes. The data are interpreted within a "Temporal Sampling" framework for developmental language trajectories.

Implicit statistical learning (ISL) is non-conscious learning where participants identify patterns in their environment after repeated exposures. This study verified whether Brazilian children with DD present disturbances in the ISL mechanism and if these disturbances may be related to the difficulties associated with DD through artificial grammar learning (AGL) and reaction time in serial tasks (SRT Task). It also intended to verify which of the paradigms proves to be the most sensitive to assess ISL and which is most associated with participants' learning to read and write. Two groups of children with and without DD from the end of the first cycle and the beginning of the second cycle of the elementary school participated in this study, paired according to socioeconomic level, education network, schooling, gender and age. Children with DD showed no disturbances in the ISL process; the AGL paradigm exhibited the most significant association with performance on reading/writing tasks. When compared to the SRT Task, the AGL paradigm proved to be more sensitive in assessing implicit processes and effectively distinguishing between the groups with and without DD. The results of the SRT Task emphasise the importance of task practice and structure for implicit learning in children with developmental dyslexia. These findings have important implications for understanding ISL and its relevance to reading and writing skills in children with developmental dyslexia.

There is great value and significance to pay attention to the mental health status of children, especially those with special needs. This study examined the effects of self-confidence and campus bullying on anxiety in students, both with and without dyslexia. A questionnaire survey was conducted among 92 students in grades 3-5, half of whom had developmental dyslexia (DD). The results showed a significant positive moderating effect of self-confidence on the relationship between campus bullying and anxiety in students with DD. Specifically, the effect of campus bullying on anxiety was more pronounced in DD students with higher levels of self-confidence than in those with lower levels. For typically developing (TD) students, this moderating effect was not significant. Further analysis showed no significant differences in this moderating effect between DD and TD students. These findings highlight the need for educators and parents to closely monitor and address campus bullying and anxiety issues in students, especially in DD students with a high level of self-confidence and to implement timely interventions.

Emerging evidence suggests that visuospatial attention plays an important role in reading among Chinese children with dyslexia. Additionally, numerous studies have shown that Chinese children with dyslexia have deficits in their visuospatial attention orienting; however, the visual attention engagement deficits in Chinese children with dyslexia remain unclear. Therefore, we used a visual attention masking (AM) paradigm to characterize the spatiotemporal distribution of visual attention engagement in Chinese children with dyslexia. AM refers to impaired identification of the first (S1) of two rapidly sequentially presented mask objects. In the present study, S1 was always centrally displayed, whereas the spatial position of S2 (left, middle, or right) and the S1–S2 interval were manipulated. The results revealed a specific temporal deficit of visual attentional masking in Chinese children with dyslexia. The mean accuracy rate for developmental dyslexia (DD) in the middle spatial position was significantly lower than that in the left spatial position at a stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) of 140 ms, compared with chronological age (CA). Moreover, we further observed spatial deficits of visual attentional masking in the three different spatial positions. Specifically, in the middle spatial position, the AM effect of DD was significantly larger for the 140-ms SOA than for the 250-ms and 600-ms SOA compared with CA. Our results suggest that Chinese children with dyslexia are significantly impaired in visual attentional engagement and that spatiotemporal visual attentional engagement may play a special role in Chinese reading.

Rhythm processing deficits in developmental dyslexia (DD) span across different rhythmic subcomponents and are difficult to capture using one experimental paradigm. How are dyslexic deficits related to motor periodicity, i.e., the execution of repetitive actions while internally generating rhythm? The present experiment investigated rhythm production in DD by means of unprompted tapping paradigm, testing the hypothesis that the ability to internally generate rhythmic patterns may be impaired. The tasks involved tapping of isochronous sequences at a comfortable and a fast tempo and tapping of a free rhythm. Forty adolescents diagnosed with DD (with or without comorbid dyscalculia) participated, along with thirty typically developing control participants. A background questionnaire gathered information about participants’ prior music training. The data show that both dyslexic groups tapped faster than the typically developing participants at the comfortable tempo. We found no statistical differences between groups in fast isochronous tapping or in the free rhythm production tasks, irrespective of music training or the presence of dyscalculia. All participants favored regular rhythms when tapping a free rhythm, with a notable preference for isochrony. These results have theoretical and clinical implications for rhythm deficit hypotheses of DD.

Abstract It has been widely accepted that phonological awareness (PA), rapid automatized naming (RAN), and verbal short-term memory (VSTM) deficits are three core facets of phonological deficits in developmental dyslexia (DD) of alphabetic orthographies. Yet, whether these three phonological facets also represent key phonological deficits of DD in Chinese, a logographic language, has never been investigated. The current study aimed to examine profiles of phonological deficits and comorbidity in Chinese DD. We tested 128 children with DD aged between 8 and 11 years and 135 age-matched controls on 9 tasks, including 2 PA tasks (phoneme deletion and onset/rime deletion), 3 RAN tasks (digit, object and color), 2 VSTM task (spoonerisms and digit span), an orthographic awareness task (orthographic judgment), and a morphological awareness task (morphological production). With the control of morphological and orthographic awareness, results from latent profile analysis revealed three latent profiles, namely the RAN deficit group, the severe PA deficit group, and the mild VSTM deficit group. Individual analysis using a Venn plot showed that 83.59% of DD exhibited phonological deficits, among whom 58.59% with RAN deficit, 49.22% with PA deficit, and 47.66% with VSTM deficit, and all three groups shared overlap. The results have important implications for the identification and remediation of Chinese DD.

Eye movements (EM) during naming alphabetic versus logographic stimuli in children with and without developmental dyslexia (DD) were examined for each stimulus separately to identify conspicuous characteristics that influence naming performance. 40 children (group DD = 18; control group C = 22) were taught Chinese characters. EM were recorded during naming alphabetic words, pictures and Chinese characters. Main variables were articulation latencies, numbers and durations of fixations, secondary variables were fixation locations and error rates. Group DD showed significantly longer latencies and more fixations while reading words, but only insignificantly more fixations while naming pictures and Chinese characters. However, their error rate was significantly higher during naming Chinese characters but correlated neither with severity of phonological deficit nor with visual complexity. Their first fixation was significantly more often on the center of characters, in group C on the left. In both groups, EM variables were influenced by conspicuous features of characters, such as visual complexity, composition and structure. EM variables and scanning behavior while naming Chinese characters indicate holistic processing in the visuo-spatial pathway and were affected by conspicuous features of characters. The higher error rate in group DD could be determined by several factors, without a major role of the phonological deficit.

Previous research has highlighted the influence of visual search (VS) on reading comprehension (RC); however, the underlying mechanisms of this effect remain poorly understood, particularly in children with reading disabilities. This study explores disparities in VS, word detection skills (WD), reading fluency (RF), and RC between Chinese children with developmental dyslexia (DD) and their typically developing peers across different age groups. The sample comprised 191 students from grades 2, 4, and 6, including 92 children with dyslexia and 99 chronological age-matched controls. Variance analysis was used to examine differences in VS, WD, RF, and RC performance. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to assess the relationships among these variables. Children with DD performed significantly worse than their typically developing peers on VS and RC tasks, with the most notable differences emerging in the middle and higher grades. Additionally, children with DD showed weaker WD skills and RF, with these disparities evident across all grade levels. SEM indicated that VS directly influences RC, with WD and RF serving as mediators in the relationship between VS and RC. These findings elucidate the complex interplay between visual processing and linguistic skills in reading development, particularly within the Chinese language context. The study underscores the importance of targeted interventions for children with dyslexia, emphasizing strategies that address the unique challenges these learners face in Chinese reading environments.

Learning disability is a condition usual amongst most populace due to poor phonological capability in humans making them impaired. One such neurological disorder is developmental dyslexia, a lack of reading and writing skills leading to difficulty in school education. The essential causes of developmental dyslexia are the consumption of more drug treatments during pregnancy, the over-the-counter purchase of medicines for minor ailments without the recommendation of physicians, and uncared-for head accidents during early life. The occurrence of this trouble is acute in India. Attempts were made by many to detect dyslexic children to reduce the intensity of this hassle. In this proposed effort, machine learning is used to locate significant styles characterizing people using EEG samples. A dataset is used for examination of developmental dyslexia, and classification is done using K nearest neighbor (KNN), decision tree, linear discriminant analysis (LDA), and support vector machine (SVM) to evaluate the performance. This piece of research work is done on MATLAB to provide results on simulation with classification accuracy of 90.76% for SVM, sensitivity of 89% for SVM, and LDA with 91.89% specificity for SVM providing optimum yield.

Objectives Most Korean students learn English as a second language from 3rd grade in public school curriculum. Despite receiving the same instruction in schools, there are concerns about the individual differences in English abilities among Korean students. Students with developmental dyslexia, who have difficulties in reading and writ-ing in their native language, also struggle with reading and writing in English. This study aimed to confirm the strengths and weaknesses of students through individual profiling of English abilties. Methods This study focused on two typical development students(TD who are A and B) and two developmental dyslexic students(DD who are C and D) in 5th grade. We developed the tests to profile English abilities, focusing on word reading, word writing, vocabulary, and meta-linguistic awareness abilities. Results In word reading and word writing, the TD showed higher performance than DD. In vocabulary, A, B, and C showed similar high performance, while D showed lower performance. In meta-linguistic awareness abilities, including phonological awareness(PA), syntactic awareness(SA), and orthographical awareness(OA), TD showed high performance in all abilities. Among the DD, C had weaknesses in SA compared to PA and OA, while D showed weaknesses in all abilities. Conclusions This study highlights the profiling of diverse English abilities among four 5th grade students. While DD showed different profiles in this study, they commonly demonstrated lower performance in reading and writing compared to TD, as well as lower metalinguistic awareness. It suggests that DD may require individualized educa-tion plan(IEP) based on their strengths and weaknesses.

ABSTRACT The recommended rehabilitation procedures for Developmental Dyslexia (DD) are not well defined, and there is currently a large debate on which therapeutic approaches are shown to be more useful and effective. Among the trainings focused on general dysfunctional cognitive processes associated with a reading disorder, recent studies suggested the efficacy of trainings on Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) compared to others. The present study was aimed at confirming the effectiveness of RAN training (RANt) to improve the reading performances of children with DD (n = 32) compared to children on a waiting list (WL, n = 25) and to children in different treatment groups, one following a text reading training (RT, n = 26) and the other combining RAN and text reading exercises (RANt+RT, n = 20), through an online platform that allows intensive and self-adaptive activities. Results confirmed the efficacy of RANt in improving reading speed and accuracy compared to the WL group (r2 ranging from small (.16) to medium (.48)) and found the absence of differences with the other active control groups. The single-subject level analysis confirmed the results, a high inter-subject variability in treatment response and pre-post differences were found. Further studies could consider such variability in the functional profile of the DD subjects, but RANt was confirmed to be a valid tool for improving decoding skills.

Reading and writing difficulties are commonly observed after traumatic and non-traumatic brain disorders (T-nTBDs). In this study, we investigated whether: (a) differentiation between acquired dyslexia (AD) and aphasia is possible in patients with T-nTBDs; (b) AD patterns constitute the subtype of Acquired Phonological Dyslexia (APhD); and (c) there are causal interactions between brain lesions and the APhD phenotype. A total of 22 Greek patients with T-nTBDs receiving a six-month intensive speech treatment were recruited for the study. The Western Aphasia Battery (WAB) and the Dyslexia Adults Screening Test (DAST) were applied. The significant statistical correlations between the DAST tests of “Semantic Fluency” and “Nonsense Passage Reading” (p = .006), along with their statistically significant effect on the Dyslexia Quotient (p = .044, p = .020, respectively), highlighted the prevalence of the APhD type. A network of brain lesions was found to be significantly involved in rapid naming, reading, and working memory difficulties. Results indicated that in several patients with T-nTBDs diagnostic APhD patterns potentially different from those of aphasia have been circumscribed and construed by brain lesions involving different but interacting components of the non-lexical route. Such findings are primary as well as decisive for the effective rehabilitation of patients with T-nTBSs.