Orthographic Regularity Research Articles

Statistical Learning of Orthographic Regularities in Chinese Children With and Without Dyslexia.

This study examined distributional statistical learning of positional, phonetic, and semantic regularities of an artificial orthography in Chinese children aged 8-10years: 29 with dyslexia, 29 age-matched controls, and 30 reading-level matched controls. Despite having positional regularity learning performance comparable to the controls, the children with dyslexia were poorer at learning left-right structured characters than top-bottom structured characters in high- and low-consistency conditions. Moreover, they showed difficulties in mapping a given sound or meaning to a specific character compared with the typically developing controls. These findings suggest that children with dyslexia have deficits in some, though not all, aspects of statistical learning of character orthography, which may reflect their difficulties in coping with distractors and inconsistency of orthographic input.

The Neural Signature of Statistical Learning of Orthography.

While an increasing number of behavioral studies suggest the importance of statistical learning in acquiring orthographic regularity across writing systems, no direct neural evidence supports this claim. The present study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the time course and the neural correlate of statistical learning of positional consistency in Chinese orthography. Visual ERPs were recorded, while Chinese adults performed an orthographic statistical learning task involving artificial characters varying in high, moderate, and low levels of positional consistency. The negative ERP deflection at the N1 time window, typically linked with orthographic regularity processing, was found in orthographic statistical learning with the low and moderate consistencies eliciting larger neural responses than the high consistency in the time window of 150–210 ms over occipital–temporal brain areas. These results suggest that orthographic statistical learning begins within the first 210 ms and that the N1 might be its neural indicator.

Magno App: Exploring Visual Processing in Adults with High and Low Reading Competence

ABSTRACT The aim of the study was to focus on whether visual processing differs between distinct levels of reading competence in young adults, from a regular orthography. We compared the 10% highest scoring (HRC) and the 10% lowest scoring groups (LRC) of reading competence (using the word chain test, WCT) in visual processing of global coherent motion and global coherent form among young adults in Norway. Results showed that the lowest scoring reading group had higher thresholds for detecting coherent motion, than the highest scoring reading group, indicating lower motion sensitivity in adults with low reading competence of a regular orthography. There was no significant difference between the groups in the coherent form control task. These results may indicate reduced sensitivity to temporally defined stimuli such as coherent motion in the group with low reading competence possible related to vulnerability of the visual dorsal stream.

Developmental Changes in the Relationship Between Character Reading Ability and Orthographic Awareness in Chinese.

The present study examined developmental changes, over a 6-year period, in the relationship between character reading ability and orthographic awareness in Chinese from the first year of kindergarten to the third year of primary school in two separate samples: the kindergarten sample of 96 children was assessed three times in the first, second, and third years of kindergarten (K1, K2, K3) with 12-month intervals. The primary school sample of 204 children was assessed four times in the first and second semesters of grade 1 (P1-S1; P1-S2), first semester of grade 2 (P2-S1) and grade 3 (P3-S1), with the first three waves at 6-month intervals and the final wave at 12-month interval. Cross-lagged path analysis showed three developmental stages of the relationship between Chinese character reading and orthographic awareness. At stage 1, reading ability in K1 and K2 predicted subsequent orthographic awareness in K2 and K3. At stage 2, there was a bidirectional relationship between character reading and orthographic awareness from P1-S1 to P1-S2. At stage 3, orthographic awareness at P1-S2 and P2-S1 predicted subsequent character reading ability at P2-S1 and P3-S1, but the prediction from reading to orthographic awareness vanished at this stage. The results depict a full developmental picture of the changed relationship between Chinese character reading and orthographic awareness over time. Beginning readers demonstrated impressive abilities in discovering or extracting orthographic regularities with increased reading ability.

Development of neural specialization for print: Evidence for predictive coding in visual word recognition.

How a child’s brain develops specialization for print is poorly understood. One longstanding account is selective neuronal tuning to regularity of visual-orthographic features, which predicts a monotonically increased neural activation for inputs with higher regularity during development. However, we observed a robust interaction between a stimulus’ orthographic regularity (bottom-up input) and children’s lexical classification ability (top-down prediction): N1 response, which is the first negative component of the event-related potential (ERP) occurring at posterior electrodes, was stronger to lower-regularity stimuli, but only in children who were less efficient in lexically classifying these stimuli (high prediction error). In contrast, N1 responses were reduced to lower-regularity stimuli in children who showed high efficiency of lexical classification (low prediction error). The modulation of children’s lexical classification efficiency on their neural responses to orthographic stimuli supports the predictive coding account of neural processes of reading.

Localization of Phonological and Semantic Contributions to Reading.

Reading involves the rapid extraction of sound and meaning from print through a cooperative division of labor between phonological and lexical-semantic processes. Whereas lesion studies of patients with stereotyped acquired reading deficits contributed to the notion of a dissociation between phonological and lexical-semantic reading, the neuroanatomical basis for effects of lexicality (word vs pseudoword), orthographic regularity (regular vs irregular spelling-sound correspondences), and concreteness (concrete vs abstract meaning) on reading is underspecified, particularly outside the context of strong behavioral dissociations. Support vector regression lesion-symptom mapping (LSM) of 73 left hemisphere stroke survivors (male and female human subjects) not preselected for stereotyped dissociations revealed the differential contributions of specific cortical regions to reading pseudowords (ventral precentral gyrus), regular words (planum temporale, supramarginal gyrus, ventral precentral and postcentral gyrus, and insula), and concrete words (pars orbitalis and pars triangularis). Consistent with the primary systems view of reading being parasitic on language-general circuitry, our multivariate LSM analyses revealed that phonological decoding depends on perisylvian areas subserving sound-motor integration and that semantic effects on reading depend on frontal cortex subserving control over concrete semantic representations that aid phonological access from print. As the first study to localize the differential cortical contributions to reading pseudowords, regular words, and concrete words in stroke survivors with variable reading abilities, our results provide important information on the neurobiological basis of reading and highlight the insights attainable through multivariate, process-based approaches to alexia.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Whereas fMRI evidence for neuroanatomical dissociations between phonological and lexical-semantic reading is abundant, evidence from modern lesion studies establishing the differential contributions of specific brain regions to specific reading processes is lacking. Our application of multivariate lesion-symptom mapping revealed that effects of lexicality, orthographic regularity, and concreteness on reading differentially depend on areas subserving auditory-motor integration and semantic control. Phonological decoding of print relies on a dorsal perisylvian network supporting auditory and articulatory representations, with unfamiliar words relying especially on articulatory mapping. In tandem with this dorsal decoding system, anterior inferior frontal gyrus may coordinate control over concrete semantic representations that support mapping of print to sound, which is a novel potential mechanism for semantic influences on reading.

Reading skills in children with mild to borderline intellectual disability: a cross-sectional study on second to eighth graders.

Students with intellectual disabilities (IDs) have various learning difficulties and are at risk for school failure. Large inter-individual differences are described for reading, but it is unclear how these vary as a function of grade. The aim of this study was to examine various reading fluency, accuracy and comprehension parameters in second-to-eighth-grade Italian children with either borderline intellectual functioning (BIF) or mild ID (MID). We examined 106 children with BIF (67 M and 39 F) and 168 children with MID (107 M and 61 F). The children were in the second to eighth grade and were comparable for chronological age (7 to 14years). They were administered a battery of tests that assessed fluency and accuracy of word, pseudo-word and text reading, as well as text comprehension. Standardised scores allowed us to compare the performance of the two groups with normative values. Children with ID obtained generally low scores compared with normative values. Those with MID had greater difficulty than those with BIF. Furthermore, difficulty was greater for speed than for accuracy measures and for words than for pseudo-words. Difficulty (particularly in the case of reading speed) tended to be pronounced at later grades. Marked individual differences were present independently of MID-BIF subgrouping, as well as stimulus category and reading parameter. As a group, children with ID showed difficulty in reading acquisition; the effect was greater for children with more severe ID, but large individual differences were observed in children with both BIF and MID. Relatively spared pseudo-word reading skills indicate efficient use of the grapheme-to-phoneme conversion routine. This processing mode may prove more ineffective at higher levels of schooling when even in regular orthographies such as Italian typically developing children rely on lexical activation.

Os sentidos do fracasso escolar no discurso de professores

Introdução: O fracasso escolar tem sido repetidamente abordado em pesquisas de diversas naturezas que buscam diferentes razões para sua ocorrência. Objetivo: Este artigo não pretende elaborar mais uma suposição do que venha a ser o fracasso escolar, mas analisar os sentidos deste no discurso de professores de educação básica. Método: Trata-se de um estudo qualitativo realizado sob a ótica da teoria-metodológica da Análise de Discurso de linha francesa a partir de Michel Pêcheux. A coleta de dados se deu em um espaço de discussão entre professores de educação básica e pesquisadores. Os dados discursivos foram gravados e, posteriormente, transcritos de forma ortográfica regular. Fragmentos do corpus foram extraídos para análise. Resultados: Identificou-se no discurso dos professores uma busca pela homogeneidade em detrimento das particularidades do aluno; encontrou-se um processo de produção de sentidos pautados em ideais escolares dominados por uma política educacional capitalista que, ao colocar os alunos como iguais e não refletir sobre suas singularidades, contribui para o fracasso escolar. Conclusão: Pode-se considerar, portanto, que os sentidos de fracasso escolar no discurso desses professores surgem como efeito de uma lógica educacional regulada por um discurso capitalista que, na tentativa de controlar o saber da criança, deixa escapar o que é interpretado como fracasso escolar.Palavras-chave: Aprendizagem. Educação. Linguagem.

Examining the role of imageability and regularity in word reading accuracy and learning efficiency among first and second graders at risk for reading disabilities

This study explored word reading accuracy and word learning efficiency in first- and second-grade students (N = 125). In two experiments, students participated in a short training exposing them to words that varied on orthographic regularity and imageability. In Experiment 1 the form of word feedback was manipulated (phonemic vs. whole word), whereas in Experiment 2 pretraining exposure was manipulated (training on meaning vs. imageability). Crossed random effects models were used to explore child- and item-level predictors related to number of exposures to mastery, posttest word reading performance, and maintenance performance after 1 week. Results from Experiment 1 indicate that imageability plays a role in irregular word learning. Results from Experiment 2 suggest that students who received imageability training required fewer exposures to reach mastery. There was a significant interaction between initial word reading skill and condition, with students with low word reading skills requiring fewer exposures for mastery if they were in the imageability condition. Overall, these findings suggest that word imageability significantly affects both word reading accuracy and rate of word learning.

Sensitivity to the Regularity of Letter Patterns Within Print Among Preschoolers: Implications for Emerging Literacy

ABSTRACTWhen learning to read, the developing mind is likely to cluster letters into frequency-based chunks. In the current study, the authors investigated the extent to which such chunking takes place among preschoolers (N = 54) by examining the association between sensitivity to subword orthographic regularity and preschooler age. A version of the wordlikeness judgment paradigm was administered to assess sensitivity to the frequency of particular grain sizes (unigram, bigram, and trigram), regardless of their positional frequency within words. The task manipulation affected bigram performance but not unigram or trigram performance and was observed only among older preschoolers. Results suggest that preschoolers first become sensitive to bigram frequency. The special status of bigrams within subword frequency sensitivity, over and above unigrams and trigrams, has practical implication for reading instruction and remediation.

The role of memory updating in shallow native and opaque second language learning

The current study investigates the relation between working memory updating and second language learning (L2) outcomes in typically-developing fourth grade children. Our primary aim was to replicate and extend previous findings on the relationship between updating and low-level reading skills, i.e. fluency. Our second objective was to examine possible updating transfer effects across languages, from the native language (L1) to L2 learning. The languages considered have different orthographic features; shallow for L1 (Italian), and opaque for L2 (English). Mediation analyses were tested using the bootstrapping method; we found that updating was directly related to reading fluency in L2 learning. Moreover, we showed evidence of the mediating role of L1 fluency in the relation between memory updating and L2 fluency. Our findings suggest that updating processes may act at a low level for reading, and are potentially independent from specific language features, both for opaque and regular orthographies.

Print-, sublexical and lexical processing in children with reading and/or spelling deficits: An ERP study

Findings on the neurophysiological correlates of developmental dyslexia are mixed, due to the differential conceptualization of the impairment. Studies differ on whether participants with developmental dyslexia are recruited based on reading skills only or reading as well as spelling skills. The current study contrasts the contribution of impaired reading and spelling to ERP correlates of print sensitivity, lexico-semantic access and sensitivity to orthographic regularities. Four groups of children were recruited: isolated reading deficit, isolated spelling deficit, combined reading and spelling deficit, and typically developing. Their neural correlates (EEG) of word, pseudohomophone, and pseudoword reading, as well as false font processing were compared. 1) All groups showed higher N1 amplitudes to letters than to false fonts. 2) Good spellers exhibited more negative N400 amplitudes for meaningless (pseudowords) than for meaningful stimuli (words and pseudohomophones). This effect was not observed in poor spellers. 3) Good readers showed sensitivity to orthographic regularities in a later time window (700–900 ms), whereas this was not the case for poor readers. 1) Print sensitivity is not affected by reading and/or spelling deficit in German-speaking 3rd graders. 2) Spelling deficits are associated with a reduced orthographic lexicon, 3) Reading deficits are associated with atypical use of sublexical information. As this effect was observed after lexico-semantic access, the results are discussed in terms of a possible orthographic reanalysis hypothesis.

Beyond Pairwise Similarity: Quantifying and Characterizing Linguistic Similarity between Groups of Languages by MDL

We present a minimum description length based algorithm for finding the regular correspondences between related languages and show how it can be used to quantify the similarity between not only pairs, but whole groups of languages directly from cognate sets. We employ a two-part code, which allows to use the data and model complexity of the discovered correspondences as information-theoretic quantifications of the degree of regularity of cognate realizations in these languages. Unlike previous work, our approach is not limited to pairs of languages, does not limit the size of discovered correspondences, does not make assumptions about the shape or distribution of correspondences, and requires no expert knowledge or fine-tuning of parameters. We here test our approach on the Slavic languages. In a pairwise analysis of 13 Slavic languages, we show that our algorithm replicates their linguistic classification exactly. In a four-language experiment, we demonstrate how our algorithm efficiently quantifies similarity between all subsets of the analyzed four languages and find that it is excellently suited to quantifying the orthographic regularity of closely-related languages.

Holistic word processing in dyslexia.

People with dyslexia have difficulty learning to read and many lack fluent word recognition as adults. In a novel task that borrows elements of the ‘word superiority’ and ‘word inversion’ paradigms, we investigate whether holistic word recognition is impaired in dyslexia. In Experiment 1 students with dyslexia and controls judged the similarity of pairs of 6- and 7-letter words or pairs of words whose letters had been partially jumbled. The stimuli were presented in both upright and inverted form with orthographic regularity and orientation randomized from trial to trial. While both groups showed sensitivity to orthographic regularity, both word inversion and letter jumbling were more detrimental to skilled than dyslexic readers supporting the idea that the latter may read in a more analytic fashion. Experiment 2 employed the same task but using shorter, 4- and 5-letter words and a design where orthographic regularity and stimuli orientation was held constant within experimental blocks to encourage the use of either holistic or analytic processing. While there was no difference in reaction time between the dyslexic and control groups for inverted stimuli, the students with dyslexia were significantly slower than controls for upright stimuli. These findings suggest that holistic word recognition, which is largely based on the detection of orthographic regularity, is impaired in dyslexia.

The influence of grammatical gender and suffix transparency in processing Italian written nouns

Abstract In some languages the grammatical gender of nouns can be probabilistically detected using formal cues; for instance, in Italian, the majority of feminine nouns end in ‘-a’(e.g., casa, ‘home’) and the majority of masculine nouns end in ‘-o’ (e.g., albero, ‘tree’). It has been hypothesized that the match/mismatch between the formal information of the suffix and the abstract grammatical information on gender affects lexical processing of nouns. An alternative account is that a default option available for gender poses constraints to mechanisms of lexical access for words exhibiting gender markers in the surface form. In the present study, nouns with highly predictive gender suffix (regular), nouns whose gender cannot be recovered from surface form (opaque) and nouns with misleading gender suffix (irregular) were compared in two reading aloud and two lexical decision experiments. Results confirmed that regular nouns are processed better than irregular nouns. No difference was detected between masculine and feminine opaque nouns. The results allow the conclusion that a formal gender feature (the gender orthographic regularity) is more likely to affect lexical processing of bare nouns than the activation of a gender default option.

What do we do with what we learn? Statistical learning of orthographic regularities impacts written word processing

Individuals rapidly become sensitive to recurrent patterns present in the environment and this occurs in many situations. However, evidence of a role for statistical learning of orthographic regularities in reading is mixed, and its role has peripheral status in current theories of visual word recognition. Additionally, exactly which regularities readers learn to be sensitive to is still unclear. To address these two issues, three experiments were conducted with artificial scripts. In Experiments 1a and 1b, participants were exposed to a flow of artificial words (five characters) for a few minutes, with either two or four bigrams occurring very frequently. In Experiment 2, exposure took place over several days while participants had to learn the orthographic and phonological forms of new words entailing or not frequent bigrams. Sensitivity to these regularities was then tested in a wordlikeness task. Finally, participants performed a letter detection task, with letters being either of high frequency or not in the exposure phase. The results of the wordlikeness task showed that after only a few minutes, readers become sensitive to the positional frequency of letter clusters and to bigram frequency beyond single letter frequency. Moreover, this new knowledge influenced the performance in the letter detection task, with high-frequency letters being detected more rapidly than low-frequency ones. We discuss the implications of such results for models of orthographic encoding and reading.

Eye Movements during Silent and Oral Reading in a Regular Orthography: Basic Characteristics and Correlations with Childhood Cognitive Abilities and Adolescent Reading Skills.

The present study aimed to define differences between silent and oral reading with respect to spatial and temporal eye movement parameters. Eye movements of 22 German-speaking adolescents (14 females; mean age = 13;6 years;months) were recorded while reading an age-appropriate text silently and orally. Preschool cognitive abilities were assessed at the participants’ age of 5;7 (years;months) using the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children. The participants’ reading speed and reading comprehension at the age of 13;6 (years;months) were determined using a standardized inventory to evaluate silent reading skills in German readers (Lesegeschwindigkeits- und -verständnistest für Klassen 6–12). The results show that (i) reading mode significantly influenced both spatial and temporal characteristics of eye movement patterns; (ii) articulation decreased the consistency of intraindividual reading performances with regard to a significant number of eye movement parameters; (iii) reading skills predicted the majority of eye movement parameters during silent reading, but influenced only a restricted number of eye movement parameters when reading orally; (iv) differences with respect to a subset of eye movement parameters increased with reading skills; (v) an overall preschool cognitive performance score predicted reading skills at the age of 13;6 (years;months), but not eye movement patterns during either silent or oral reading. However, we found a few significant correlations between preschool performances on subscales of sequential and simultaneous processing and eye movement parameters for both reading modes. Overall, the findings suggest that eye movement patterns depend on the reading mode. Preschool cognitive abilities were more closely related to eye movement patterns of oral than silent reading, while reading skills predicted eye movement patterns during silent reading, but less so during oral reading.

Exploring the derivative suffix frequency effect in Spanish speaking children

This study was designed to examine the developmental course of the suffix frequency effect and its role in the development of automatic morpho-lexical access. In Spanish, a highly transparent language from an orthographic point of view, this effect has been shown to be facilitative in adults, but the evidence with children is still inconclusive. A total of 90 2nd, 4th and 6th grade children performed a go/no go lexical decision task, with words containing either high or low frequency suffixes. Results showed significant main effects for grade and for derivative suffix frequency, with no interaction between both. This finding suggests that the suffix frequency effect emerges very early in reading development and that its role is well established from the beginning of reading experience, suggesting that sensitivity to suffix frequency can be a good predictor of a child’s ability to internalize orthographic regularities at an early stage. These findings are interpreted in the light of previous evidence paying special attention to orthographic transparency and morpheme regularity in Spanish language.

Electrophysiological evidence of inhibited orthographic regularity effect on the recognition of real Chinese characters.

Orthographic regularity is important for processing Chinese characters. However, the issues how orthographic regularity influences the visual recognition of real Chinese characters and whether common processes related to the potential effect exist between successive (SUCC) and concurrent (CONC) conditions with asynchronous presentation of S1 and S2 are still unclear. In the current study, event-related potential (ERP) technique was adopted to investigate electrophysiological correlates of the orthographic regularity effect. Behaviorally, we found fewer errors and shorter response times for SUCC and CONC conditions compared to simultaneous (SIM) condition with synchronous presentation and disappearance of S1 and S2, which demonstrates similarities between SUCC and CONC and their differences from SIM. We found bilaterally smaller N170 responses for real Chinese characters preceded by false characters compared to real characters, demonstrating that orthographic regularity may inhibit the recognition of real Chinese characters. Additionally, the inhibition effect was present in SUCC and CONC rather than SIM, which shows that smaller N170 responses may have been due to asynchronous presentations of S1 and S2 and common inhibition processes in the SUCC and CONC conditions.

Lexical organization of language-ambiguous and language-specific words in bilinguals.

Previous research has shown the importance of sublexical orthographic cues in determining the language of a given word when the two languages of a bilingual reader share the same script. In this study, we explored the extent to which cross-language sublexical characteristics of words-measured in terms of bigram frequencies-constrain selective language activation during reading. In Experiment 1, we investigated the impact of language-nonspecific and language-specific orthography in letter detection using the Reicher-Wheeler paradigm in a seemingly monolingual experimental context. In Experiment 2, we used the masked translation priming paradigm in order to better characterize the role of sublexical language cues during lexical access in bilinguals. Results show that bilinguals are highly sensitive to statistical orthographic regularities of their languages and that the absence of such cues promotes language-nonspecific lexical access, whereas their presence partially reduces parallel language activation. We conclude that language coactivation in bilinguals is highly modulated by sublexical processing and that orthographic regularities of the two languages of a bilingual are a determining factor in lexical access.