Reading-impaired Children Research Articles

Reading-impaired children improve through text-fading training: analyses of comprehension, orthographic knowledge, and RAN

Early intervention for children with reading impairments is crucial in order to achieve reading improvements and avoid school failure. One line of reading intervention research focuses on the experimental manipulation of reading rate through a text-fading training approach. Considering relevant reading-related predictors (i.e., orthographic knowledge and rapid automatized naming; RAN), we aim at evaluating the text-fading training’s efficiency for a sample of German reading-impaired third graders (n = 120). The purpose of the present study was to examine (1) the predictive value of orthographic knowledge and RAN and their contribution of explained variance in comprehension performance during training, (2) text-fading training effects on reading rate and comprehension in a pre-post comparison, and (3) (lasting) text-fading training effects at word and sentence level in a pre-post-follow-up design. Results of structural models indicated RAN to be significantly related to comprehension performance for the experimental group, whereas no sufficient regression weight was found for orthographic knowledge. A reverse pattern was found for the self-paced group. No significant improvements regarding reading rate and comprehension were revealed for the experimental group after training. However, significant positive effects on word and sentence level at post-test time point indicate stronger reading improvements for the experimental compared to the control group. The retention of training gains was indicated at sentence-level reading 6 months after the training. Possible explanations for the presented positive training effects as well as the mixed results for reading rate, comprehension, and follow-up preservation are discussed.

Visual search efficiency and functional visual cortical size in children with and without dyslexia

Dyslexia is characterised by poor reading ability. Its aetiology is probably multifactorial, with abnormal visual processing playing an important role. Among adults with normal reading ability, there is a larger representation of central visual field in the primary visual cortex (V1) in those with more efficient visuospatial attention. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that poor reading ability in school-aged children (17 children with dyslexia, 14 control children with normal reading ability) is associated with deficits in visuospatial attention using a visual search task. We corroborated the psychophysical findings with neuroimaging, by measuring the functional size of V1 in response to a central 12° visual stimulus. Consistent with other literature, visual search was impaired and less efficient in the dyslexic children, particularly with more distractor elements in the search array (p = 0.04). We also found atypical interhemispheric asymmetry in functional V1 size in the dyslexia group (p = 0.02). Reading impaired children showed poorer visual search efficiency (p = 0.01), needing more time per unit distractor (higher ms/item). Reading ability was also correlated with V1 size asymmetry (p = 0.03), such that poorer readers showed less left hemisphere bias relative to the right hemisphere. Our findings support the view that dyslexic children have abnormal visuospatial attention and interhemispheric V1 asymmetry, relative to chronological age-matched peers, and that these factors may contribute to inter-individual variation in reading performance in children.

Assistive technology as reading interventions for children with reading impairments with a one-year follow-up

Purpose: This pilot study investigated the possible transfer effect on reading ability in children with reading difficulties after a systematic intervention to train and compensate for reading deficiencies by using applications in smartphones and tablets. The effects of using assistive technology (AT) one year after the interventions were completely studied. School related motivation, independent learning and family relations were also considered.Method: 35 pupils aged 10–12 years participated. They were assessed five times with reading tests. The participants, their parents and teachers were surveyed with questionnaires regarding their experience of using AT. The data from the assessments were analyzed with paired t-tests and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests. The data from the questionnaires were analyzed using content analysis.Results: The paper shows that using AT can create transfer effects on reading ability one year after the interventions were finished. This means that reading impaired children may develop at the same rate as non-impaired readers. Also, increased school motivation and an increase in independent learning and family effects have been shown.Conclusions: This paper provides implications in how to facilitate reading impaired pupils’ learning process and realizes the need to challenge the concept of reading to change to fit modern means of gaining information.Implications for rehabilitationChildren with reading impairment could benefit from assistive technology in regards of their reading development process and increase their chances of not falling behind peers.Assistive technology as applications in smartphones and tablets may aid children with reading impairment to have an equal platform for learning in school as their peers without reading difficulties.Assistive technology could facilitate the information gaining process and subsequently increase motivation to learn and increase interest in reading activities.Assistive technology had wider effects on its users: stigmatizing situations when leaving the classroom for special education were avoided and positive effects on family life were noted.

White matter integrity of cerebellar-cortical tracts in reading impaired children: A probabilistic tractography study

Little is known about the white matter integrity of cerebellar-cortical pathways in individuals with dyslexia. Building on previous findings of decreased volume in the anterior lobe of the cerebellum, we utilized novel cerebellar segmentation procedures and probabilistic tractography to examine tracts that connect the anterior lobe of the cerebellum and cortical regions typically associated with reading: the temporoparietal (TP), occipitotemporal (OT), and inferior frontal (IF) regions. The sample included 29 reading impaired children and 27 typical readers. We found greater fractional anisotropy (FA) for the poor readers in tracts connecting the cerebellum with TP and IF regions relative to typical readers. In the OT region, FA was greater for the older poor readers, but smaller for the younger ones. This study provides evidence for discrete, regionally-bound functions of the cerebellum and suggests that projections from the anterior cerebellum appear to have a regulatory effect on cortical pathways important for reading.

Visual Training Helps Improve Reading in Dyslexic Children with Abnormal Crowding

Aims: To evaluate the effectiveness of visual training aimed at improving the visual function in dyslexic children suffering from increased crowding. Study Design: Single-masked crossover pilot study. Place and Duration of Study: University of Turin and the Gradenigo Hospital, Department of Ophthalmology, Turin, between March and November 2014. Methodology: 14 reading-impaired children (8-11 years) with increased paracentral crowding underwent a visual training devised to improve reading fluency by reducing lateral masking. Patients were asked to recognize trigrams of letters with different inter-letter spacing displayed at variable eccentricities on both sides of the fixation point (trigram training). Since any visual task chosen as a placebo could show some rehabilitative effect, placebo training was replaced by a period of reading practice, when reading exercises were recommended to be done at home. Results: After two weeks of training, in the recruited sample reading rate for words increased from 1.88 syl/sec (SD:±0.74) to 2.19 syl/sec (±0.86). Reading rate for non-words improved from 1.13 (±0.39) syl/sec to 1.28 (±0.42) syl/sec. No significant improvement was found after the period of Original Research Article Aleci et al.; OR, 3(3): 85-94, 2015; Article no.OR.2015.015 86 reading practice both at words and non-words. Analysis of variance showed a significant reading exercise x trigram training effect both for words (P= .0004) and non-words (P= .0001) in the recruited sample of disabled readers. To confirm the ameliorative effect of training (not being involved a placebo), a second, smaller sample has been administered the reading practice before the treatment. In this second group no substantial change in reading fluency was found after two weeks of reading practice, whereas after the trigram training reading rate improved by 11.8% at words and 29% at non-words despite, probably due to the small size of the second sample, results did not reach statistical significance. Conclusion: Trigram visuoperceptive training demonstrated to be effective in improving reading rate in dyslexic children suffering from reinforced crowding. The ameliorative effect of the rehabilitation is found to be sharper in patients showing abnormal crowding compared to the nonclassified dyslexics trained in a previous study. Interdisciplinary rehabilitative approach of developmental dyslexia should therefore consider also visuoperceptive rehabilitation aimed at normalizing lateral masking.

Plasticity of early neural language processes

Plasticity of early neural language processes

The ability to tap to a beat relates to cognitive, linguistic, and perceptual skills

Reading-impaired children have difficulty tapping to a beat. Here we tested whether this relationship between reading ability and synchronized tapping holds in typically-developing adolescents. We also hypothesized that tapping relates to two other abilities. First, since auditory-motor synchronization requires monitoring of the relationship between motor output and auditory input, we predicted that subjects better able to tap to the beat would perform better on attention tests. Second, since auditory-motor synchronization requires fine temporal precision within the auditory system for the extraction of a sound’s onset time, we predicted that subjects better able to tap to the beat would be less affected by backward masking, a measure of temporal precision within the auditory system. As predicted, tapping performance related to reading, attention, and backward masking. These results motivate future research investigating whether beat synchronization training can improve not only reading ability, but potentially executive function and auditory processing as well.

Musical, language, and reading abilities in early Portuguese readers

Early language and reading abilities have been shown to correlate with a variety of musical skills and elements of music perception in children. It has also been shown that reading impaired children can show difficulties with music perception. However, it is still unclear to what extent different aspects of music perception are associated with language and reading abilities. Here we investigated the relationship between cognitive-linguistic abilities and a music discrimination task that preserves an ecologically valid musical experience. 43 Portuguese-speaking students from an elementary school in Brazil participated in this study. Children completed a comprehensive cognitive-linguistic battery of assessments. The music task was presented live in the music classroom, and children were asked to code sequences of four sounds on the guitar. Results show a strong relationship between performance on the music task and a number of linguistic variables. A principle component analysis of the cognitive-linguistic battery revealed that the strongest component (Prin1) accounted for 33% of the variance and Prin1 was significantly related to the music task. Highest loadings on Prin1 were found for reading measures such as Reading Speed and Reading Accuracy. Interestingly, 22 children recorded responses for more than four sounds within a trial on the music task, which was classified as Superfluous Responses (SR). SR was negatively correlated with a variety of linguistic variables and showed a negative correlation with Prin1. When analyzing children with and without SR separately, only children with SR showed a significant correlation between Prin1 and the music task. Our results provide implications for the use of an ecologically valid music-based screening tool for the early identification of reading disabilities in a classroom setting.

Distinct patterns of brain function in children with isolated spelling impairment: New insights

Studies investigating reading and spelling difficulties heavily focused on the neural correlates of reading impairments, whereas spelling impairments have been largely neglected so far. Hence, the aim of the present study was to investigate brain structure and function of children with isolated spelling difficulties. Therefore, 31 children, aged ten to 15years, were investigated by means of functional MRI and DTI. This study revealed that children with isolated spelling impairment exhibit a stronger right hemispheric activation compared to children with reading and spelling difficulties and controls, when engaged in an orthographic decision task, presumably reflecting a highly efficient serial grapheme-phoneme decoding compensation strategy. In addition, children with spelling impairment activated bilateral inferior and middle frontal gyri during processing correctly spelled words and misspelled words, whereas the other two groups showed bilateral activation only in the misspelled condition, suggesting that additional right frontal engagement could be related to generally higher task demand and effort. DTI analyses revealed stronger frontal white matter integrity (fractional anisotropy) in controls (compared to spelling and reading impaired children), whereas no structural differences between controls and spelling impaired children were observed.

Deficits in Processing Characters in Chinese Developmental Dyslexia: Preliminary Results From Event-related Potentials and Time Frequency Analyses

Individuals with dyslexia have deficiencies in lexical organization and processing that are behaviorally manifested as difficulties in learning grapheme-phoneme correspondences. The present study investigates the lexical representations of Chinese reading-impaired children using event-related potentials (ERP) and time-frequency analysis. Two Cantonese-speaking male children, one with reading impairment (PR) and one with normal reading performance (CA), performing a character recognition task were conducted. ERP results indicated that CA showed lexicality effect at N400 and N170 that was not evident in PR. The time-frequency analyses found greater event-related synchronization and phase coherence at theta band suggesting greater cognitive demand in processing pseudowords than real words for CA. Greater synchronization between cortical regions was also observed at the gamma band for pseudowords. These differences were not found for PR, suggesting that PR may have weaker lexical representations, resulting in inefficient orthographic processing and perhaps difficulties in accessing phonological and/or semantic information of known characters.

An Exploratory Study of the Development of Early Syllable Structure in Reading-Impaired Children

Babbling between the ages of 8 and 19 months was examined in 19 children, 13 of whom were at high risk for reading disorder (RD) and 6 normally reading children at low familial risk for RD. Development of syllable complexity was examined at five periods across this 11-month window. Results indicated that children who later evidenced RD produced a lower proportion of canonical utterances and less complex syllable structures than children without RD. As syllable complexity is an early indicator of phonological sophistication, differences at this level may offer a window into how the phonological system of children with RD is structured. Future directions for this line of research are discussed.

Auditory stream biasing in children with reading impairments

Reading impairments have previously been associated with auditory processing differences. We examined auditory stream biasing, a global aspect of auditory temporal processing. Children with reading impairments, control children and adults heard a 10 s long stream-bias-inducing sound sequence (a repeating 1000 Hz tone) and a test sequence (eight repetitions of two pure tones of 1000 and 1420 Hz in an XYX-XYX... pattern) with a variable delay interval (from 0.09 to 8 s) between the two sequences. Reading-impaired children had a significantly lower proportion of streamed responses than control children and adults. Streamed responses in reading-impaired participants differed according to their musical experience, but musically experienced reading-impaired participants were still significantly different from musically experienced controls. Reading impairments are associated with global differences in auditory integration, and musical experience needs to be considered when investigating auditory processing capabilities.

Individual differences in anatomy predict reading and oral language impairments in children

Developmental dyslexia (DD) and specific language impairment (SLI) are disorders of language that differ in diagnostic criteria and outcome. DD is defined by isolated reading deficits. SLI is defined by poor receptive and expressive oral language skills. Reading deficits, although prevalent, are not necessary for the diagnosis of SLI. An enduring question is whether these two disorders are qualitatively different or simply differ quantitatively along a dimension of severity. Here we address this problem by examining neuroanatomical correlates of reading and language in children with learning disabilities. We asked whether a quantitative anatomical risk index derived from previous work could predict behavioural profiles in a heterogeneous sample of 14 boys and 8 girls (11-16 years of age) with reading and language impairments. The results confirmed our predictions that (i) children with relatively smaller and symmetrical brain structures (negative risk indices) would have the severe comprehension impairments typical of SLI; (ii) children with larger, asymmetrical brain structures (positive risk indices) would have poor word reading in the presence of relatively preserved comprehension, a profile typical of DD; and (iii) the best performance would be seen in children with anatomical risk indices near zero (normal anatomy). Also, in confirmation of previous work, rapid automatic naming was not predicted by the anatomical risk index, but by anatomical measures derived from the frontal lobes. These results highlight the key significance of comprehension deficits in distinguishing DD from SLI. Reading impaired children with and without comprehension deficits appear to occupy neuroanatomical domains on the opposite sides of normal.

Proprioception oculaire et dyslexie de développement: À propos de 60 observations cliniques

The objective of this study is to assess proprioception anomalies in postural deficiency syndrome in a group of children suffering from reading impairment.Sixty male patients with an average age of 11 years and 9 months were included in the study. Initially, they were given a standardized neuropsychological examination, which confirmed the diagnosis of reading impairment. Then after filling out a questionnaire seeking a proprioceptive anomaly, the patients were subjected to a clinical ocular and postural examination consisting of nine precisely described steps.All of the patients recruited for the study presented clinical signs confirming a proprioception disorder found as a part of postural deficiency syndrome.This study opens a new direction for research concerning the origin and treatment of at least some reading-impaired children.

Yellow Filters Can Improve Magnocellular Function: Motion Sensitivity, Convergence, Accommodation, and Reading

The magnocellular system plays an important role in visual motion processing, controlling vergence eye movements, and in reading. Yellow filters may boost magnocellular activity by eliminating inhibitory blue input to this pathway. It was found that wearing yellow filters increased motion sensitivity, convergence, and accommodation in many children with reading difficulties, both immediately and after three months using the filters. Motion sensitivity was not increased using control neutral density filters. Moreover, reading-impaired children showed significant gains in reading ability after three months wearing the filters compared with those who had used a placebo. It was concluded that yellow filters can improve magnocellular function permanently. Hence, they should be considered as an alternative to corrective lenses, prisms, or exercises for treating poor convergence and accommodation, and also as an aid for children with reading problems.

Specific Language Impairments in Children

Theories of specific language impairment (SLI) in children turn on whether this deficit stems from a grammar-specific impairment or a more general speech-processing deficit. This issue parallels a more general question in cognitive neuroscience concerning the brain bases of linguistic rules. This more general debate frequently focuses on past-tense verbs, specifically, whether regular verbs (bake-baked) are encoded as rules, and whether irregular forms (take-took) are processed differently. Children with SLI have difficulties with past tenses, so SLI could represent an impairment to rules. An alternative theory explains past-tense deficits in SLI as resulting from a phonological deficit. Evidence for this theory has been obtained from connectionist models of past-tense impairments and from behavioral studies of language- and reading-impaired children. The data suggest that SLI is not an impairment to linguistic rules, that past-tense impairments can be explained as resulting from a perceptual deficit, and that a single processing mechanism is ideally suited to account for these children's difficulties.

The Role of Dichotic Listening Performance and Tasks of Executive Functions in Reading Impairment: A Discriminant Function Analysis

This study focused on the role of dichotic listening performance for the identification of reading impaired subtypes. Dichotic listening (DL), using verbal stimuli, has shown to be a valid measure of language lateralization. Usually, lateralization is estimated from the proportion of right ear over left ear accuracy during a free recall test procedure. However, it has been suggested that a more accurate estimate of laterality can be obtained by using a directed attention procedure. A sample of 43 reading disabled children of whom 18 showed signs of impaired language comprehension skills and 25 without language comprehension impairments, were compared to 20 age, and gender, matched controls on dichotic listening performance in both an unbiased free recall task and in a directed attention task using consonant-vowel syllables as dichotic stimuli. A laterality index was calculated for left and right ear stimuli reported during both the free recall condition and the attended ear-scores for the two directed attention conditions. Although both DL procedures yielded significant group differences, with a lower laterality score for the reading disabled compared to the controls, there was no main effect of DL-procedure or group × procedure interaction. Taken alone, DL performance could correctly classify 42% of the reading impaired samples, but together with other measures of executive functions, discriminant function analyses yielded 90.74% accuracy in classifying reading impaired children. The result indicates that DL together with tests of executive functions are valuable tools for assessment of reading impaired subjects.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the WPPSI, WPPSI-R, and WISC-R: Evaluation of a Model Based on Knowledge-Dependent and Processing-Dependent Subtests

Previous factor analyses of the Wechsler scales have supported a two-factor (WPPSI and WPPSI-R) and three-factor solution (WISC-R). The present paper explores the validity of a four-factor model across these three instruments. The four-factor model maintains Wechsler's original distinction between verbal and nonverbal domains but distinguishes between “knowledge dependent” and “processing dependent” factors within each domain. Four separate LISREL maximum likelihood confirmatory factor analyses were performed on the WPPSI, WPPSI-R, and WISC-R standardization samples. A best-fitting model was determined by comparing the present four-factor model to the traditional two-factor model that distinguished between Verbal and Performance and a three-factor model that parallels the WISCR factor structure. The new four-factor model resulted in a significant improvement of fit compared to both the two-factor and three-factor models across the three samples. The clinical validity of the model was examined by analyzing the profile patterns of language-impaired children (N = 198) tested with the WPPSI and reading-impaired children (N= 230) tested with the WISC-R. Because processing-dependent tests require more mapping than knowledge-dependent tests, the pattern “knowledge dependent” > “processing dependent” is predicted. This pattern was confirmed in both samples.

Age-related improvements in auditory temporal resolution in reading-impaired children.

Individuals with developmental dyslexia show impairments in processing that require precise timing of sensory events. Here, we show that in a test of auditory temporal acuity (a gap-detection task) children ages 6-9 years with dyslexia exhibited a significant deficit relative to age-matched controls. In contrast, this deficit was not observed in groups of older reading-impaired individuals (ages 10-11 years; 12-13 years) or in adults (ages 23-25 years). It appears, therefore, that early temporal resolution deficits in those with reading impairments may significantly ameliorate over time. However, the occurrence of an early deficit in temporal acuity may be antecedent to other language-related perceptual problems (particularly those related to phonological processing) that persist after the primary deficit has resolved. This result suggests that if remedial interventions targeted at temporal resolution deficits are to be effective, the early detection of the deficit and early application of the remedial programme is especially critical.

Phonological basis in reading disability: A review and analysis of the evidence

Poor readers are known to do consistently worsethan their normal reading peers on tasks ofphonological processing. They are characterizedby their difficulties in printed wordrecognition, phonological awareness andphonological decoding. An increasing body ofevidence points to deficits in speechperception as a source of subtle but ramifyingeffects in reading impaired children andadults. These deficits may be traced to poorlycoded phonological representations. Thisarticle will attempt to explain poor readers'difficulties in phonological coding by drawingon a gestural account speech development.Implications of this approach for readingintervention will be presented.