Single Word Reading Research Articles

Preschool predictors of reading ability in the first year of schooling in children with ASD.

A high percentage of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) show elevated challenges in learning to read. We investigated longitudinal predictors of reading skills in 41 children diagnosed with ASD. All children completed measures of precursor literacy skills at the age of 4-5 years, including phonological awareness, letter sound knowledge, rapid automatic naming, name writing, and phonological memory (digit span), along with measures of word- and passage-level reading skills in their first year of formal schooling. Nonverbal cognition and letter sound knowledge accounted for 53.4% of the variance in regular single word reading at school age, with letter sound knowledge a significant individual predictor. Overall, 18 children showed reading ability scores in the average range on a standardized test of passage-level reading ability, whereas 23 children performed below expectations. These groups differed significantly on all precursor literacy measures (at ages 4-5), except autism symptoms based on parent report. Group membership was significantly predicted by preschool receptive vocabulary, name writing, and rapid automatic naming, with high sensitivity and specificity. These results are discussed in reference to the literature describing early literacy predictors for typically developing children, highlighting key areas for future intervention and support. Autism Res 2018, 11: 1332-1344. © 2018 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: Children with autism are at increased risk of persistent reading difficulties. We examined whether preschool reading-related skills linked to later reading ability. Performance on the following three tasks administered at preschool predicted children who showed early reading success versus below expectations in their first year of school: vocabulary, name writing, and rapid naming of familiar objects and shapes. These results can inform future interventions.

Corrigendum: Reading Single Words Aloud With Monocular Presentation: The Effect of Word Frequency

A small error in the analysis script used for the experiment in Robidoux & Besner (2018) led to an overstatement of the evidence against the Jainta et al. (2017) account for that data. When adjusting the general Bayes factor for the directional prediction made by Jainta et al.’s account, we stated that “…the evidence favoring the null model over the Jainta et al. account increases from 12.6 times to 46.0 times”, where in fact the evidence increases to 23.0 times. Reasoning and conclusions for the study are not affected by the correction. Revised analysis scripts have been uploaded to the original location (https://osf.io/t9dux/), and the original script contains a prominent warning.

Individual Differences in the Neural and Cognitive Mechanisms of Single Word Reading.

Written language is a human invention that our brains did not evolve for. Yet, most research has focused on finding a single theory of reading, identifying the common set of cognitive and neural processes shared across individuals, neglecting individual differences. In contrast, we investigated variation in single word reading. Using a novel statistical method for analyzing heterogeneity in multi-subject task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we clustered readers based on their brain’s response to written stimuli. Separate behavioral testing and neuroimaging analysis shows that these clusters differed in the role of the sublexical pathway in processing written language, but not in reading skill. Taken together, these results suggest that individuals vary in the cognitive and neural mechanisms involved in word reading. In general, neurocognitive theories need to account not only for what tends to be true of the population, but also the types of variation that exist, even within a neurotypical population.

Assessing neglect dyslexia: Usefulness of a computerized procedure

The neglect syndrome is frequently associated with neglect dyslexia (ND). ND is characterized by omissions or misread initial letters of words. In clinical settings, ND is usually assessed with “paper and pencil” tests. However, without controlling exposure time of items and patients’ response time, ND could be unnoticed. Our computerized procedure consists of four tasks: a single word reading task, a lexical and a semantic decision task and a text reading task. In each task, the time exposure of the items is controlled and we measured both the errors and the participants’ response time. Twenty-eight brain-damaged patients, including 12 neglect patients, and 30 healthy neurological participants carried out this procedure. As expected, neglect patients produced more errors and are slower than brain-damaged patients and healthy volunteers and this especially during the single word reading task. This task shows 256 items: pseudo-words mixed with words (frequent or not, long or short) displaying in different ways (horizontal, vertical without anisometry or with a left or a right anisometry) with or without a spatial index. All this materiel permits error patterns to emerge according to the clinical state (neglect patients, brain-damaged patients or neurological healthy volunteers). Our study aimed at proposing computerized tasks to help the diagnostic of neglect dyslexia. The neglect dyslexia could be observed with or without a severe neglect syndrome. In the case of a light neglect syndrome, having a computerized assessment is important in the ND diagnostic process especially as specific pattern have been observed based on the analyses of the error and the response time in the single word reading task.

Effect of treatment of symptomatic convergence insufficiency on reading in children: a pilot study

BackgroundTo evaluate the impact of treatment of symptomatic convergence insufficiency using office‐based vergence/accommodative therapy on reading skills in children.MethodsChildren (n = 44) ages nine to 17-years with symptomatic convergence insufficiency were administered the following four reading tests: Wechsler Individual Achievement Test II; Test of Word Reading Efficiency; Test of Silent Word Reading Fluency; and the Gray Oral Reading Test, at baseline and eight-weeks after completion of a 16‐week program of office‐based vergence/accommodative therapy. To determine whether significant change occurred with therapy, change in performance was compared to zero. Treatment response was determined using a composite score of symptoms and signs at the conclusion of treatment and at the 24‐week outcome visit. Participants were classified as early responders, late responders, or non‐responders based upon whether criteria for successful treatment were met at the completion of 16-weeks of treatment, at the 24‐week outcome visit, or not met at either visit, respectively.ResultsAfter treatment for convergence insufficiency, statistically significant improvements were found for reading comprehension (mean = 4.2, p = 0.009) and the reading composite score (mean = 2.4, p = 0.016) as measured by the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test at the 24‐week visit. These improvements were related to the clinical treatment outcome measures (p = 0.011) with the largest improvements occurring in those who were early responders to treatment. Reading speed (words per minute) increased significantly on the Gray Oral Reading Test (p < 0.0001). No significant improvements were observed for single word reading or reading fluency as measured by the Test of Word Reading Efficiency, the Test of Silent Word Reading Fluency or the Gray Oral Reading Test.ConclusionImprovements in reading comprehension and reading composite were found after office‐based vergence/accommodative therapy, with the greatest improvements in those who responded early to treatment.

Speed of reading texts in Arabic and Hebrew

We tested the effects of orthography on text reading by comparing reading measures in Arabic and Hebrew-speaking adults. The languages are typologically very similar, but use different orthographies. We measured naming speed of single letters, words and nonwords, and visual processing. Arabic-speakers also performed some of the tasks in Hebrew. We measured silent and oral reading speed of simpler and complex texts and their relationships with component abilities. Results show that Arabic-speakers read complex texts in Arabic more slowly than Hebrew-speakers read in Hebrew. Arabic-speakers read texts in Hebrew more slowly than in Arabic, even though they performed the letter naming and visual tasks equivalently in the two languages. For both groups, the best predictor of oral reading speed is speed of reading single words, with speed of letter naming adding to the prediction in Hebrew, but not in Arabic. No variable had a significant contribution to the prediction of speed of silent reading. The results suggest that even though lower level processes such as letter and word identification may be simpler to perform in Hebrew than in Arabic, higher level processes required to comprehend a complex text, are always faster in the first language of the participants. Both the characteristics of the text, its structural and semantic complexity, and the characteristics of the orthography play roles in the quality of reading. Relationships between the top-down and bottom-up components of reading are dynamic, and specific to orthographic factors and the sociolinguistic environment of the readers (e.g., the diglossia of Arabic).

Literacy Learning Outcomes in a Longitudinal Study of a Postschool Literacy Education Program for Young Adults With Intellectual Disabilities

AbstractThere is limited research about learning outcomes for young people with intellectual disabilities (ID) in postschool education (PSE). This is a significant issue as PSE is a strong predictor of successful employment for individuals with ID. Tertiary education programs have been developed in several countries, including Australia. These programs remain rare and available to only a minority of young people. For several years, service organizations in the broader community in Australia and overseas have been developing educational programs particularly in literacy to meet the needs of this age group. However, many of these programs have been developed by practitioners with limited access to evidence‐based practice, leading to difficulties in providing evidence of their effectiveness. This paper reports the findings of a longitudinal study of the effects on literacy learning of an evidence‐based 2‐year postschool literacy program for individuals with ID. All students (n = 191) who completed the program from 1998 to 2013 were assessed for their receptive vocabulary, single word reading, and reading comprehension. These assessments were undertaken at entry to the program, the end of the first year, and on graduation. The quantitative analysis used a growth trajectory model to assess students' progress, accounting for age, disability, gender, maturation, and time. The results provide statistically significant (p &lt; .001) evidence that individual students increased their scores in all of the assessments over time. The authors argue that appropriately designed long‐term PSE programs for literacy learning have the potential to enhance the language and literacy development of young adults with intellectual disabilities.

The effects of literacy interventions on single-word reading for individuals who use aided AAC: a systematic review

The purpose of this systematic review was to investigate the effects of instruction on single-word reading of individuals who use aided augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). A systematic search identified nine single-case experimental design studies that involved 24 individuals who used aided AAC. Overall, the evidence indicated that instruction had positive effects on reading at the single-word level for individuals across ages and diagnostic categories (i.e., autism spectrum disorder (ASD), cerebral palsy (CP), Down syndrome, and intellectual disability). The studies revealed that these effects were consistent across a range of participant, intervention, and outcome measure characteristics. Phonological approaches, sight-word approaches, and a combination of these two approaches yielded very large effects. Despite the large effects, the findings must be viewed with caution due to limitations in the number of studies and participants and limitations in the reporting of detailed participant and intervention characteristics across the studies. In order to determine which interventions are most effective for which individuals, future research directions are discussed, including the need for greater specificity in describing participant and intervention characteristics, investigations into how to best measure intervention outcomes without requiring spoken responses, and investigations into longer-term interventions targeting a wider range of reading skills.

Intervention for a lexical reading and spelling difficulty in two Greek-speaking primary age children

ABSTRACTAn intervention study was carried out with two nine-year-old Greek-speaking dyslexic children. Both children were slow in reading single words and text and had difficulty in spelling irregularly spelled words. One child was also poor in non-word reading. Intervention focused on spelling in a whole-word training using a flashcard technique that had previously been found to be effective with English-speaking children. Post-intervention assessments conducted immediately at the end of the intervention, one month later and then five months later showed a significant improvement in spelling of treated words that was sustained over time. In addition, both children showed generalisation of improvement to untrained words and an increase in scores in a standardised spelling assessment. The findings support the effectiveness of theoretically based targeted intervention for literacy difficulties.

What Factors Facilitate Resilience in Developmental Dyslexia? Examining Protective and Compensatory Mechanisms Across the Neurodevelopmental Trajectory.

Developmental dyslexia is a specific learning disability characterized by deficits reading single words. Dyslexia is heritable and has been associated with neural alterations in regions of the left hemisphere in the brain. Cognitive and neural atypicalities have been observed before children with familial risk for dyslexia begin reading, yet children who are at risk subsequently develop reading abilities on a continuum from good to poor. Of those children who develop good reading skills, what factors are associated with more successful outcomes? In this article, we review findings describing genetic, cognitive, neurobiological, and environmental factors that facilitate reading development and propose a model of neural pathways to support successful reading development in at-risk children. This research can inform educational and clinical strategies to support at-risk children. Investigating factors that contribute to the variance in behavioral outcomes among at-risk children may help us understand developmental disorders and associated etiological, compensatory, and protective factors.

Large-scale functional networks connect differently for processing words and symbol strings.

Reconfigurations of synchronized large-scale networks are thought to be central neural mechanisms that support cognition and behavior in the human brain. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) recordings together with recent advances in network analysis now allow for sub-second snapshots of such networks. In the present study, we compared frequency-resolved functional connectivity patterns underlying reading of single words and visual recognition of symbol strings. Word reading emphasized coherence in a left-lateralized network with nodes in classical perisylvian language regions, whereas symbol processing recruited a bilateral network, including connections between frontal and parietal regions previously associated with spatial attention and visual working memory. Our results illustrate the flexible nature of functional networks, whereby processing of different form categories, written words vs. symbol strings, leads to the formation of large-scale functional networks that operate at distinct oscillatory frequencies and incorporate task-relevant regions. These results suggest that category-specific processing should be viewed not so much as a local process but as a distributed neural process implemented in signature networks. For words, increased coherence was detected particularly in the alpha (8–13 Hz) and high gamma (60–90 Hz) frequency bands, whereas increased coherence for symbol strings was observed in the high beta (21–29 Hz) and low gamma (30–45 Hz) frequency range. These findings attest to the role of coherence in specific frequency bands as a general mechanism for integrating stimulus-dependent information across brain regions.

Using Serial and Discrete Digit Naming to Unravel Word Reading Processes.

During reading acquisition, word recognition is assumed to undergo a developmental shift from slow serial/sublexical processing of letter strings to fast parallel processing of whole word forms. This shift has been proposed to be detected by examining the size of the relationship between serial- and discrete-trial versions of word reading and rapid naming tasks. Specifically, a strong association between serial naming of symbols and single word reading suggests that words are processed serially, whereas a strong association between discrete naming of symbols and single word reading suggests that words are processed in parallel as wholes. In this study, 429 Grade 1, 3, and 5 English-speaking Canadian children were tested on serial and discrete digit naming and word reading. Across grades, single word reading was more strongly associated with discrete naming than with serial naming of digits, indicating that short high-frequency words are processed as whole units early in the development of reading ability in English. In contrast, serial naming was not a unique predictor of single word reading across grades, suggesting that within-word sequential processing was not required for the successful recognition for this set of words. Factor mixture analysis revealed that our participants could be clustered into two classes, namely beginning and more advanced readers. Serial naming uniquely predicted single word reading only among the first class of readers, indicating that novice readers rely on a serial strategy to decode words. Yet, a considerable proportion of Grade 1 students were assigned to the second class, evidently being able to process short high-frequency words as unitized symbols. We consider these findings together with those from previous studies to challenge the hypothesis of a binary distinction between serial/sublexical and parallel/lexical processing in word reading. We argue instead that sequential processing in word reading operates on a continuum, depending on the level of reading proficiency, the degree of orthographic transparency, and word-specific characteristics.

Reading Single Words Aloud With Monocular Presentation: The Effect of Word Frequency

Few phenomena in reading research are as ubiquitous as the observation (both within and across paradigms) that high frequency words are easier to process than lower frequency ones. Jainta et al (2014) and Jainta et al (2017) report an exception in that, when reading sentences with only one eye, the word frequency advantage disappeared. If this same pattern were seen in single word reading it would strongly challenge all current theoretical accounts of reading aloud currently on the table. The present experiment therefore explored whether this same pattern is evident when participants read aloud single words under monocular (versus binocular) conditions. Bayesian analysis techniques reveal that, in contrast to the sentence reading results, a monocular condition does not modulate the word frequency effect when reading single words aloud. The present result thus point to a qualitative difference between word recognition processes seen in single word reading versus those seen in eye tracking studies.

Voxel-based lesion analysis of brain regions underlying reading and writing

The neural basis of reading and writing has been a source of inquiry as well as controversy in the neuroscience literature. Reading has been associated with both left posterior ventral temporal zones (termed the “visual word form area”) as well as more dorsal zones, primarily in left parietal cortex. Writing has also been associated with left parietal cortex, as well as left sensorimotor cortex and prefrontal regions. Typically, the neural basis of reading and writing are examined in separate studies and/or rely on single case studies exhibiting specific deficits. Functional neuroimaging studies of reading and writing typically identify a large number of activated regions but do not necessarily identify the core, critical hubs. Last, due to constraints on the functional imaging environment, many previous studies have been limited to measuring the brain activity associated with single-word reading and writing, rather than sentence-level processing. In the current study, the brain correlates of reading and writing at both the single- and sentence-level were studied in a large sample of 111 individuals with a history of chronic stroke using voxel-based lesion symptom mapping (VLSM). VLSM provides a whole-brain, voxel-by-voxel statistical analysis of the role of distinct regions in a particular behavior by comparing performance of individuals with and without a lesion at every voxel. Rather than comparing individual cases or small groups with particular behavioral dissociations in reading and writing, VLSM allowed us to analyze data from a large, well-characterized sample of stroke patients exhibiting a wide range of reading and writing impairments. The VLSM analyses revealed that reading was associated with a critical left inferior temporo-occipital focus, while writing was primarily associated with the left supramarginal gyrus. Separate VLSM analyses of single-word versus sentence-level reading showed that sentence-level reading was uniquely associated with anterior to mid-portions of the middle and superior temporal gyri. Both single-word and sentence-level writing overlapped to a great extent in the left supramarginal gyrus, but sentence-level writing was associated with additional underlying white matter pathways such as the internal capsule. These findings suggest that critical aspects of reading and writing processes diverge, with reading relying critically on the ventral visual recognition stream and writing relying on a dorsal visuo-spatial-motor stream.

Word Reading Fluency as a Serial Naming Task

ABSTRACTWord list reading fluency is theoretically expected to depend on single word reading speed. Yet the correlation between the two diminishes with increasing fluency, while fluency remains strongly correlated to serial digit naming. We hypothesized that multi-element sequence processing is an important component of fluency. We used confirmatory factor analyses with serial and discrete naming tasks with matched items, including digits, dice, objects, number words, and words, performed by about 100 Greek children in each of Grades 1, 3, and 5. Separable serial and discrete factors emerged across grades, consistent with distinct skill dimensions. Loadings were greater for serial than discrete, suggesting that discrete processing does not fully determine serial processing. Average serial performance differed more than discrete between grades, consistent with improvement beyond single-item speed. Serial word reading aligned increasingly with the serial factor at higher grades. Thus, word reading fluency is gradually dominated by skill in simultaneously processing multiple successive items through different stages (termed “cascading”), beyond automatization of individual words.

Reading in developmental prosopagnosia: Evidence for a dissociation between word and face recognition.

Recent models suggest that face and word recognition may rely on overlapping cognitive processes and neural regions. In support of this notion, face recognition deficits have been demonstrated in developmental dyslexia. Here we test whether the opposite association can also be found, that is, impaired reading in developmental prosopagnosia. We tested 10 adults with developmental prosopagnosia and 20 matched controls. All participants completed the Cambridge Face Memory Test, the Cambridge Face Perception test and a Face recognition questionnaire used to quantify everyday face recognition experience. Reading was measured in four experimental tasks, testing different levels of letter, word, and text reading: (a) single word reading with words of varying length,(b) vocal response times in single letter and short word naming, (c) recognition of single letters and short words at brief exposure durations (targeting the word superiority effect), and d) text reading. Participants with developmental prosopagnosia performed strikingly similar to controls across the four reading tasks. Formal analysis revealed a significant dissociation between word and face recognition, as the difference in performance with faces and words was significantly greater for participants with developmental prosopagnosia than for controls. Adult developmental prosopagnosics read as quickly and fluently as controls, while they are seemingly unable to learn efficient strategies for recognizing faces. We suggest that this is due to the differing demands that face and word recognition put on the perceptual system. (PsycINFO Database Record

Abstract WP383: Neuropsychological Outcomes Following Pediatric Cerebral Sinovenous Thrombosis

Introduction: Few research studies have investigated neuropsychological domains beyond IQ in pediatric cerebral sinovenous thrombosis (CSVT). Additionally, prior studies have contained small sample sizes making generalization of results difficult. This study investigates a broad set of neuropsychological domains in pediatric CSVT and identifies predictors of poor outcomes. Hypothesis: Children with CSVT were predicted to have worse cognitive outcomes compared to the normative sample. Earlier age at CSVT and the presence of acute symptoms associated with CNS dysfunction (e.g., altered mental status, aphasia, ataxia, seizure, and hemiparesis) were also hypothesized to predict worse long-term outcomes. Methods: 20 children (mean age = 15.6 years) who suffered a CSVT during childhood (range = 3.6 to 18.0 years) participated in this study. Children completed a comprehensive neuropsychological battery and parents completed several standardized behavioral questionnaires. Testing was completed at least 6 months post-CSVT. Data were analyzed using one-sample t -tests and ANOVA. Results: Children with CSVT had significantly greater problems on measures of mood, behavior, visual-motor integration, and processing speed compared to the normative sample (all p -values &lt; 0.05). There were also trends for children with CSVT to have poorer performance on measures of confrontation naming ( p = 0.051), sentence repetition ( p = 0.064), and metacognition ( p = 0.057). Age at the time of CSVT was a significant predictor, such that older age at CSVT was associated with poorer single word reading and poorer visual-motor integration, but higher adaptive functioning. In these preliminary findings, acute symptoms associated with CNS dysfunction did not significantly predict outcomes. Conclusions: To our knowledge, these findings represent the largest study to date investigating a broad set of neuropsychological domains following pediatric CSVT. This population demonstrated weaknesses in visual-motor integration and processing speed compared to the normative sample. Additionally, these children exhibited more mood and behavior symptoms, supporting the need for careful psychological follow-up in this vulnerable population.

Cues to stress assignment in reading aloud.

Research seeking to uncover the mechanisms by which we read aloud has focused almost exclusively on monosyllabic items presented in isolation. Consequently, important challenges that arise when considering polysyllabic word reading, such as stress assignment, have been ignored, while little is known about how important sentence-level stress cues, such as syntax and rhythm, may influence word reading aloud processes. The present study seeks to fill these gaps in the literature by (a) documenting the individual influences of major sublexical cues that readers use to assign stress in single-word reading in English and (b) determining how these cues may interact with contextual stress factors in sentence reading. In Experiments 1, 2, and 3 we investigated the effects of prefixation, orthographic weight (i.e., number of letters in a syllable), and vowel length on stress assignment by asking participants to read aloud carefully-constructed nonwords that varied on the presence of these cues. Results revealed individual effects of all three cues on the assignment of second-syllable stress. In Experiment 4, we tested the effects of these cues on stress assignment in the context of sentence reading. Results showed that sublexical cues influenced stress assignment over and above higher-level syntactic and rhythmic cues. We consider these findings in the framework of extant rule-based, distributed-connectionist, and Bayesian approaches to stress assignment in reading aloud, and we discuss their applications to understanding reading development and acquired and developmental reading disorders.

Orthographic processing: A 'mid-level' vision of reading: The 44th Sir Frederic Bartlett Lecture.

I will describe how orthographic processing acts as a central interface between visual and linguistic processing during reading, and as such can be considered to be the 'mid-level vision' of reading research. In order to make this case, I first summarize the evidence in favour of letter-based word recognition before examining work investigating how orthographic similarities among words influence single word reading. I describe how evidence gradually accumulated against traditional measures of orthographic similarity and the associated theories of orthographic processing, forcing a reconsideration of how letter-position information is represented by skilled readers. Then, I present the theoretical framework that was developed to explain these findings, with a focus on the distinction between location-specific and location-invariant orthographic representations. Finally, I describe work extending this theoretical framework in two main directions: first, to the realm of reading development, with the aim to specify the key changes in the processing of letters and letter strings that accompany successful learning to read, and second, to the realm of sentence reading, in order to specify how orthographic information can be processed across several words in parallel, and how skilled readers keep track of which letters belong to which words.

Early Reading Abilities of Bilingual Children With Nonsyndromic Orofacial Clefts.

To investigate the early reading abilities, and related cognitive-linguistic processes, in bilingual children with nonsyndromic cleft lip and/or palate (CL/P), and to identify deficits that might be amenable to intervention. Bilingual participants with CL/P aged 5 to 6 years who were English-dominant ( n=17) or Mandarin-dominant ( n=18) were recruited using consecutive sampling from a national cleft treatment center and matched pairwise to a sample of typically developing (TD) children on language dominance, age, and socioeconomic status. All participants were assessed in English on single-word reading accuracy using the Wide Range Achievement Test (4th Ed), and key cognitive-linguistic factors associated with reading development: phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN), receptive and expressive vocabulary, and verbal short-term and working memory. CL/P and TD groups were compared within language dominance group (Mandarin or English) for all measures. The Mandarin-dominant CL/P group had significantly poorer reading accuracy and phonological awareness than their TD peers. Additionally, regardless of language dominance, faster RAN correlated significantly with better reading accuracy in both the CL/P groups but not the TD groups. Children with CL/P who are learning English as a second language are at greater risk of reading difficulties. Furthermore, the cognitive-linguistic processes underlying early reading in bilingual children with CL/P differ from those of their TD peers. Routine screening and tailored intervention is advisable.