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This study examined the heterogeneity of literacy profiles for adolescents with and without a specific learning disability (SLD) in the U.S. state of Florida Student subgroups displaying common patterns of performance in word-level skills and reading comprehension were identified through latent profile analysis. Results indicate most of the total sample demonstrated below-average performance in one or both areas with word-level skill difficulties being more common than difficulties in reading comprehension alone. Changes in reading performance by profile over time (Grades 6–8) were examined through a latent transition analysis revealing consistent patterns in the SLD sample and variable patterns in the typically developing sample. Resulting profiles were utilized to predict performance on an end-of-year broad reading comprehension measure indicating very little change in performance over time. Findings suggest large numbers of adolescents with concurrent word-level and reading comprehension difficulties likely need sustained intervention in word-level skills to support their reading comprehension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid automatized naming (RAN) is a powerful predictor of reading fluency, and many digitized dyslexia screeners include RAN as an essential component. However, the validity of digitized RAN has not been established. Using a sample of 174 second-graders, this study tested (1) the comparability between paper and digitized versions of RAN and (2) the validity of the digitized version. We found that paper and digital versions were highly correlated, and such correlation was consistent across students' reading levels. Further, the digital RAN predicted children's word reading proficiency as well as the paper version. Moreover, the constructs measured by paper and digital versions of RAN were comparable. We conclude that the digitized RAN is a valid alternative to the traditional paper version for this age group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transition from sounding out unfamiliar words to effortlessly reading connected text does not occur all at once or at the same rate for students. The purpose of this study was to explore the accuracy of three decision rules (data point, median, and trend line) applied to progress monitoring outcomes of alphabetic principle (nonsense word fluency [NWF]) and oral reading rate (curriculum-based measurement of reading [CBM-R]). Outcomes from a sample of U.S. students receiving Tier-2 supports in oral reading and decoding were analyzed to generate model parameters. Scores were simulated for NWF and CBM-R, and decision rules were applied to schedules where one observation was collected per week. The trend-line rule was viable with NWF after 7 weeks and 9 to 10 weeks with CBM-R. Differences in base rates of non-proficiency between measures call into question the utility of NWF to capture student improvement in alphabetic principle as they encounter increasingly complex word types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purposes of this clinical focus article are to describe differences in expressive prosody among autistic individuals, describe the role of prosody in reading comprehension, highlight the potential contribution of prosody to the reading comprehension difficulties experienced by many autistic individuals, discuss interventions that target prosody, and make clinical recommendations. Method: We describe differences in expressive prosody that many autistic individuals experience; review the existing body of literature surrounding reading comprehension, prosody, and autism; and discuss interventions that target prosody as it applies to reading comprehension. Conclusion: Based on the review of the literature and presentation of the challenges that currently exist, we make clinical recommendations regarding the integration of interventions addressing prosody in expressive communication and reading comprehension for autistic individuals who have strong word reading skills and poor reading comprehension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The attention hypothesis, which assumes that font emphasis captures readers' attention, is usually used to explain the mechanism by which such emphasis operates. This study further delineates the attention hypothesis by investigating the ways in which font emphasis captures attention and its effects on the integration of emphasized information into the previous context. We computed event-related potentials and frequency band-specific electroencephalographic power changes occurring while participants read sentences containing critical words that were either emphasized (i.e., displayed in a color different from the other words in the sentence) or not (i.e., shown in the same color as the rest of the sentence) and semantically congruent with prior words or not. The results showed that the emphasized words (as compared to control words) elicited a reduced N1 and increased P2, indicating that font emphasis reduced familiarity-based visuo-orthographic processing and instead increased controlled attentional processing. We also observed greater P300 and power decreases in the alpha and beta frequency range in response to critical words in the emphasized condition, suggesting that font emphasis enhances focal attention to promote a fuller integration of information into the sentence context. Furthermore, relative to the control condition, the emphasized condition induced delta and theta power increases for the incongruent words. These results suggest that font emphasis increases the efficiency of glyph processing, which facilitates lexical access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Negated text is a difficult text construction that readers encounter in various forms throughout their lives. Despite a wealth of research on its impact, including potential strategies to improve comprehension, readers maintain poor comprehension when encountering this text construction. Given its large potential impact on reading texts like medical paperwork or insurance documents, it is important to understand not only what makes the construction difficult but also what can help a reader better process the information communicated in this way. The present research explored the impact of rereading on older adults' comprehension and metacomprehension of negated text. Results demonstrated that while rereading was beneficial for older adults' comprehension overall, this benefit was not specific to negated text. Moreover, metacomprehension data demonstrated that both young and older readers are aware of the difficulty they have in understanding negated text, but corresponding comprehension remains low. Results suggest that an additional reading of a passage containing negated text helped to mitigate the comprehension deficits associated with text that has been negated. This demonstrates that the comprehension accuracy can be improved for negated text under these circumstances. Future research should explore what specific factors associated with re-reading helps to improve comprehension accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This mixed-methods research sought to examine the experience of people with aphasia who used text-to-speech (TTS) support to read a novel for virtual book club participation. Method: Six people with chronic aphasia used a TTS system to review portions of a novel about which they conversed during eight virtual book club meetings occurring over 5 weeks. During one-on-one interactions prior to each meeting, participants answered comprehension questions and provided feedback about reading experiences. Then, during group meetings, they reviewed and discussed relevant book content and predicted upcoming content. During a structured individual interview, participants reflected on their supported reading and book club experience. Results: Participants reported a range of reading confidence prior to study participation, mostly influenced by decreased comprehension or reading speed. After book club participation, four participants expressed increased confidence. Some reported searching for key words and skipping difficult words as strategies additional to TTS support. All reviewed at least some book sections more than once either with or without TTS support. Highly motivated participants expressed low frustration and high reading ease and enjoyment. Perceived comprehension was roughly consistent with actual comprehension across participants. Most believed TTS support promoted faster reading than otherwise possible. Participants liked adjustable features affecting speech output rate, word or sentence highlighting, and font size. Psychosocial benefits included decreased isolation and increased friendship. Conclusions: The findings extend previous evidence about perceived and actual benefits associated with TTS support. People with aphasia express positive experiences when given TTS support during book club participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Prediction facilitates word processing in the moment, but the longer-term consequences of prediction remain unclear. We investigated whether prediction error during language encoding enhances memory for words later on. German-speaking participants read sentences in which the gender marking of the pre-nominal article was consistent or inconsistent with the predictable noun. During subsequent word recognition, we probed participants' recognition memory for predictable and unpredictable nouns. Our results indicate that individuals who demonstrated early prediction error during sentence reading, showed enhanced recognition memory for nouns overall. Results from an exploratory step-wise regression showed that prenominal prediction error and general reading speed were the best proxies for recognition memory. Hence, prediction error may facilitate recognition by furnishing memory traces built during initial reading of the sentences. Results are discussed in the light of hypotheses positing that predictable words show a memory disadvantage because they are processed less thoroughly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an eye-tracking-while-reading study, we investigated adult monolinguals' (N = 80) processing of two-clause sentences embedded in short narratives. Three principles theorised to guide comprehension of complex sentences were contrasted: one operating at the clause level, namely clause structure (main clause – subordinate clause or vice versa), and two operating at the discourse-level, namely givenness (given-new vs. new-given) and event order (chronological vs. reverse order). The results indicate that clause structure mainly affects early stages of processing, whereas the two principles operating at the discourse level are more important during later stages and for reading times of the entire sentence. Event order was found to operate relatively independently of the other principles. Givenness was found to overrule clause structure, a phenomenon that can be related to the grounding function of preposed subordinate clauses. We propose a new principle to reflect this interaction effect: the grounding principle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Many people with aphasia (PWA) want to read books. Text-to-speech (TTS) technology sometimes provides comprehension and processing time benefits when PWA read short, multisentence passages. Currently, no research examines the effect of TTS support when PWA read books. Aims: This study’s primary purpose was to examine comprehension accuracy and total processing time of PWA and neurotypical healthy adults (NHAs) when reading book sections in read-only versus TTS-supported conditions. A secondary aim was to examine condition preference and perceived degree of understanding by people in both participant groups. Method and Procedure: Ten PWA and 10 NHAs alternated between read-only and TTS-supported conditions to read a book. Participants answered comprehension questions and provided feedback about their reading experience, condition preference, and desire to use TTS technology for future book reading. Outcomes and Result: Overall, PWA exhibited less accurate comprehension and slower processing times compared to NHAs in both conditions. No significant comprehension accuracy difference occurred between conditions for either group. However, four PWA exhibited a 10% or greater increase in comprehension accuracy when receiving TTS support. A significant processing time difference occurred with PWA processing text faster with TTS support, whereas NHAs did not demonstrate processing time differences. Most PWA preferred the TTS condition and expressed a desire to use TTS technology in the future. Most NHAs expressed the opposite preference. Conclusions: TTS support during book reading promotes faster processing without compromising comprehension for PWA. Clinicians should discuss with PWA the relative importance of comprehension accuracy, processing time, and comfort with technology when determining whether using TTS support during book reading is desirable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cue-based retrieval theories of sentence processing posit that long-distance dependency formation is guided by a cue-based retrieval mechanism: dependents are retrieved via retrieval cues associated with a verb. When retrieval cues match multiple similar items in memory, this leads to cue-based retrieval interference. A landmark study by Van Dyke and McElree tested interference from sentence-external items: retrieval cues were manipulated to (mis-)match semantically similar items presented prior to a target dependency. The support for interference of this type is weak, and only comes from English object cleft constructions. Our study provides a cross-linguistic investigation of interference from sentence-external items: Three eyetracking studies in English, German and Russian tested interference in the online processing of filler-gap dependencies under varying task demands. A fourth study attempted to replicate the Van Dyke and McElree study using self-paced reading. Bayes factors analyses show cross-linguistic evidence against interference from sentence-external items. A broader implication from these data is that cue-based retrieval interference is driven by sentence-internal distracting items, suggesting that a cue-based search is restricted to the current linguistic context. • Cross-linguistic study on cue-based interference from sentence-external items. • Three larger-sample eye-tracking studies in English, German and Russian. • A fourth self-paced reading study attempts to replicate the original Van Dyke study. • Data show evidence against interference from sentence-external items. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The results of two large-scale eye-tracking studies are reported. • A novel variable trailing mask paradigm was used to determine whether amount or location of rereading of NP/Z garden-path sentences was related to offline comprehension. • E1 presented comprehension questions after each sentence, and E2 presented the comprehension questions both before and after each sentence. • Results provide strong evidence (of multiple types) against selective reanalysis of NP/Z garden-paths. When people read temporarily ambiguous ("garden-path") sentences, the forward movement of their eyes is often interrupted by regressions. These regressions are usually followed by rereading some portion of the previously read text. Frazier and Rayner (1982) proposed the Selective Reanalysis Hypothesis (SRH), which proposed that readers regress to critical choice points in the syntactic phrase marker of garden-paths where misparses had occurred, and furthermore, then reanalyzed the syntactic structure to arrive at a correct parse in most cases. A considerable amount of more recent work, however, suggests that readers often do not derive a correct parse or interpretation from such sentences. If these more recent observations are accurate, perhaps rereading is not necessarily strategic, controlled, or predictable. The current study consists of two large-scale eye-tracking experiments designed specifically to examine where and how much people reread garden-path sentences, and whether rereading influences comprehension accuracy. A variable text-masking paradigm was employed to restrict access to portions of garden-paths and non-garden-paths during rereading. Scanpath analyses were used to determine whether some or all participants targeted syntactically critical parts of previously read text. Comprehension questions probed final interpretations. In short, readers often misinterpreted the garden-paths, and no rereading measures predicted better comprehension. Furthermore, scanpath analyses revealed considerable variation across and within readers; only small percentages of trials conformed to structurally-based predictions. Taken together, we fail to find support for structurally strategic rereading. We therefore propose that rereading of these sentences is more often "confirmatory" than "revisionary" in nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prediction has been proposed as an overarching principle that explains human information processing in language and beyond. To what degree can processing difficulty in syntactically complex sentences – one of the major concerns of psycholinguistics – be explained by predictability, as estimated using computational language models, and operationalized as surprisal (negative log probability)? A precise, quantitative test of this question requires a much larger scale data collection effort than has been done in the past. We present the Syntactic Ambiguity Processing Benchmark, a dataset of self-paced reading times from 2000 participants, who read a diverse set of complex English sentences. This dataset makes it possible to measure processing difficulty associated with individual syntactic constructions, and even individual sentences, precisely enough to rigorously test the predictions of computational models of language comprehension. By estimating the function that relates surprisal to reading times from filler items included in the experiment, we find that the predictions of language models with two different architectures sharply diverge from the empirical reading time data, dramatically underpredicting processing difficulty, failing to predict relative difficulty among different syntactic ambiguous constructions, and only partially explaining item-wise variability. These findings suggest that next-word prediction is most likely insufficient on its own to explain human syntactic processing. • We collect a large reading time dataset for English syntactically complex sentences. • We evaluate to what extent surprisal – estimated using neural network language models – can explain processing difficulty. • Surprisal greatly underestimated processing difficulty for most constructions. • It failed to predict relative difficulty among different garden path constructions. • It also failed to predict across-item variation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The Internet provides individuals with intellectual disability with access to information and participation in a broader society, but it also presents risks when content is difficult to comprehend. This study aimed to test whether students with intellectual disability enhanced their comprehension of online blogs as a function of the format (text vs. video) and linguistic simplification. Method: Young students with intellectual disability read or watched text and video‐blog posts about environment, health, society, and technology in their original version or a linguistically simplified/easy‐to‐read version. Then, they completed tests that assessed their reading processing (e.g., calibration) and comprehension of blog content. Results: Participants predicted that they would correctly answer 80% of the comprehension questions, but their average comprehension of the blog posts was 55%, regardless of the condition. Previous levels of students' reading comprehension skills predicted their blog comprehension scores and interacted with format and simplification. Those participants with higher reading comprehension skills learned more from non‐simplified than from simplified blog posts while those with lower levels of reading comprehension skills did not benefit from linguistic simplification nor video‐blog format although the difference with regard to higher comprehenders was lower in the video and simplified conditions. Conclusions: Improving reading comprehension abilities of students with intellectual disability is essential to prevent the digital divide while linguistic simplification is not a useful accommodation and even counterproductive for higher reading comprehenders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poor comprehenders are a significant subgroup of poor readers who, due to their ability to read aloud accurately, are often difficult to identify. This study aimed to determine whether assessment using two oral language tasks, mapped onto the two components of the Simple View of Reading, would provide an efficient approach to identification. Children (N = 218) from School Years 3 to 6 (ages 7; 8–12; 1) attending two schools in Australia were assessed, and 45 identified as potential poor comprehenders, based on a profile of average phonological awareness but poor listening comprehension. Subsequent assessment of decoding and text reading comprehension confirmed 24 of these children to be poor comprehenders, consistent with reported prevalence rates. Five of these children were judged to be weak readers by their classroom teacher. The oral tasks alone overidentified this group; however, the findings suggest that using the tasks as an initial phase, followed up with a reading assessment, could be effective in identifying poor comprehenders, and reduce time spent in testing as this would only involve at-risk children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the link between phonological and morphological awareness and reading comprehension among special-education children who attend self-contained special education classes in regular Arab elementary schools.The three hypotheses were: First, the higher the level of phonological awareness in Arabic among special education learners, the better their reading comprehension level. Similarly, the higher the level of morphological awareness in Arabic among special education learners, the better their reading comprehension level. Third, it is possible to point to a joint effect of a child's phonological awareness and morphological awareness on reading comprehension abilities. This study's findings confirmed all three hypotheses and can subsequently be applied to understanding the processes underlying phonological and morphological awareness. This may be instrumental in discovering methods for promoting literacy and reading comprehension in special education learners. This study may also contribute to development of teacher training programmes that focus on effective methods for raising phonological and morphological awareness, ultimately resulting in improved reading comprehension in special education learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reading comprehension and fluency are crucial for successful academic learning and achievement. Yet, a rather large percentage of children still have enormous difficulties in understanding a written text at the end of primary school. In this context, the aim of our study was to investigate whether text simplification, a process of reducing text complexity while keeping its meaning unchanged, can improve reading fluency and comprehension for children learning to read. Furthermore, we were interested in finding out whether some readers would benefit more than others from text simplification as a function of their cognitive and language profile. To address these issues, we developed an iBook application for iPads, which allowed us to present normal and simplified versions of informative and narrative texts to 165 children in grade 2. Reading fluency was measured for each sentence, and text comprehension was measured for each text using multiple-choice questions. The results showed that both reading fluency and reading comprehension were significantly better for simplified than for normal texts. Results showed that poor readers and children with weaker cognitive skills (nonverbal intelligence, memory) benefitted to a greater extent from simplification than good readers and children with somewhat stronger cognitive skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This systematic review synthesizes fluency intervention research for struggling readers in Grades 6 through 12 from January 2006 to October 2019. The search yielded 17 studies examining reading fluency and comprehension outcomes. Most studies examined repeated reading (RR) interventions to improve reading fluency for struggling readers at these grade levels, resulting in improved fluency but few positive effects on reading comprehension outcomes, similar to trends observed in prior systematic reviews. Reading connected text with an equivalent word count to word counts of RR sessions did not result in increased reading fluency, a finding aligned with a prior synthesis. Few studies used a fluent reader as a model prior to RRs, despite previous support for modeling within fluency interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We conducted two separate but related multiple baseline with alternating treatment single-case design studies to investigate the effect of the same reading intervention for students with autism spectrum disorder being implemented under different conditions. We conducted a researcher-implemented study in a public school (Study 1) and a teacher-implemented study in a specialized private charter school for children with ASD (Study 2). In each study, we compared a typical intervention approach with interest-based text intervention that included reading on each child's interest area. The treatment included systematic vocabulary instruction and main-summarization strategy instruction. Findings from Study One showed consistent increases in comprehension and vocabulary outcomes compared to baseline. In Study Two the baselines phases were unstable with small differences in mean scores detected for vocabulary during the intervention phase favoring the interest-based treatment for three of four participants. The results across studies were mixed indicating the importance of taking into account contextual factors including student characteristics and learning environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates reading comprehension in adult deaf and hearing readers. Using correlational analysis and stepwise regression, we assess the contribution of English language variables (e.g., vocabulary comprehension, reading volume, and phonological awareness), cognitive variables (e.g., working memory (WM), nonverbal intelligence, and executive function), and language experience (e.g., language acquisition and orthographic experience) in predicting reading comprehension in deaf and hearing adult bilinguals (native American Sign Language (ASL) signers, non-native ASL signers, and Chinese–English bilinguals (CEB)), and monolingual (ML) controls. For all four groups, vocabulary knowledge was a strong contributor to reading comprehension. Monolingual English speakers and non-native deaf signers also showed contributions from WM and spoken language phonological awareness. In contrast, CEB showed contributions of lexical strategies in English reading comprehension. These cross-group comparisons demonstrate how the inclusion of multiple participant groups helps us to further refine our understanding of how language and sensory experiences influence reading comprehension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Studies in India have examined the relation of rapid automatized naming (RAN), reading fluency (RF), phonological awareness (PA), spelling ability, and language ability with reading comprehension (RC) in English in children where English is taught for the purpose of education. However, the predictor variables of RC have not been explored. Aim: To propose a structural model for RC in English in children with mother tongue Marathi studying in English medium schools. Materials and Methods: Participants included 80 children with mother tongue Marathi (Grades 1 and 2) in English medium schools. A battery of test for the assessment of language, RAN, PA, RF, spelling and RC in English was administered. Smart PLS 3.0 was used for the analysis of data. Results: The final model proposed had loadings > 0.708, composite reliabilities > 0.7, and AVE of all constructs > 0.5. Discriminant validity of the model was ascertained as the values were less than the heterotraitmonotrait (HTMT) criteria of 0.85 for all components. 86% of variance in RC was explained by language ability (β = 0.409, P < 0.001) and RF (β = 0.453, P < 0.001), when RF was mediated by RAN-letter (β = 0.348, P < 0.001), and PA (β = 0.384, P < 0.001). Conclusion: The structural model proposed in the study is reliable and valid. Language ability and RF have significant influence on RC, and RAN-letter and PA have a significant mediating role in the relationship between RF and RC. Thus, RC in English can be improved if language and RF are developed, and RF can be improved by enhancing RAN-letter speed, and PA skills in these children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most debated topics in figurative language studies is whether the access to non-literal meanings is direct or indirect. Although models that argue for longer processing times for figurative compared to literal meanings have been largely criticized, figurative language is often associated with increased cognitive work. We investigated whether such greater cognitive work is indicative of more time-consuming processes or rather lower availability of figurative meanings, and whether there are differences between figurative types. We used a multi-response Speed-Accuracy Trade-off paradigm, where a meaningfulness judgment task was combined with a response deadline procedure to estimate speed and accuracy independently for metaphorical (Those dancers are butterflies) and metonymic sentences (That student reads Camilleri), compared with literal equivalents. While both metaphors and metonymies showed lower asymptote, that is, they were judged less accurately than literal counterparts, only metonymies were associated with a processing delay. Moreover, the difference in asymptote with respect to the literal condition was greater for metaphor than for metonymy. These findings indicate that the process that derives metaphor and metonymy is more complex than the process that derives literal meanings, even more so for metaphor. The processing delay, however, is present only in the case of metonymies. Taken together, our study offers key findings that reconcile a lively debate on the time course of figurative language comprehension, showing that the cost of non-literal meaning is not always a matter of time, and depends also on the figurative type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Complex features of science texts present idiosyncratic challenges for middle grade readers, especially in a post-Common Core educational world where students' learning is dependent on understanding informational text. The primary aim of this study was to explore how middle school readers process science texts and whether such comprehension processes differed due to features of complexity in two science texts. Method: Thirty 7th grade students read two science texts with different profiles of text complexity in a thinkaloud task. Think-aloud protocols were coded for six comprehension processes: connecting inferences, elaborative inferences, evaluative comments, metacognitive comments, and associations. We analyzed the quantity and type of comprehension processes generated across both texts in order to explore how features of text complexity contributed to the comprehension processes students produced while reading. Results: Students made significantly more elaborative and connecting inferences when reading a text with deep cohesion, simple syntax, and concrete words, while students made more evaluative comments, paraphrases, and metacognitive comments when reading a text with referential cohesion, complex syntax, and abstract words. Conclusions: The current study provides exploratory evidence for features of text complexity affecting the type of comprehension processes middle school readers generate while reading science texts. Accordingly, science classroom texts and materials can be evaluated for word, sentence, and passage features of text complexity in order to encourage deep level comprehension of middle school readers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Comprehenders are sensitive to state changes of semantically related objects. • Interference effects arise due to semantic similarity between the objects. • Interference effects arise due to the dissimilarity of states of the same object. • Results are compatible with theories emphasizing dynamic views of cognition. The present research shows that language comprehenders are sensitive to multiple states of target and semantically related objects. In Experiments 1 to 2B, participants (total N = 273) read sentences that either implied a minimal change of an object's state (e.g., "Jane chose a mango") or a substantial change (e.g., "Jane stepped on a mango") and then verified whether a subsequently pictured object was mentioned in the sentence. Crucially, the picture either showed the original/modified state of an object that was mentioned in the sentence (e.g., "mango" in Experiment 1) or not (e.g., "banana" in Experiments 2A and 2B). The results of Experiment 1 demonstrated that the objects in a modified state were verified faster when a sentence implied a substantial state-change rather than a minimal state-change. In contrast, the reverse was true for the objects in the original state. Importantly, verification latencies of pictures depicting original and modified states of an object in the substantial state-change condition were approximately similar, thus suggesting that language comprehenders maintain multiple representations of an object in different states. The results of Experiments 2A and 2B revealed that when participants had to indicate that a pictured object (e.g., banana) was not mentioned in the sentence, their verification latencies were slowed down when the sentence contained a semantically related item (e.g., mango) and described this item as being changed substantially by the action. However, these verification latencies varied continuously with the degree of change: the more dissimilar the states of a semantically related item, the less time participants needed to verify a pictured object. The results are discussed through the prism of theories emphasizing dynamic views of event cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Spelling difficulty is a common symptom of aphasia and can entail editing difficulties. Previous research has shown that extensive editing is related to a lower production rate in text writing for persons with aphasia, yet editing difficulty is not commonly examined. It is not known if editing difficulty is related to reading and writing skills or to aspects of the word. Aims: To analyse spelling and editing processes as well as errors in a dictation task performed by Swedish‐speaking adults with post‐stroke aphasia. Furthermore, the study aimed to identify any relationships between spelling and editing difficulties and characteristics of individual words. Finally, relationships between successful edits and reading and phonological ability were investigated and specific editing strategies or behaviours identified. Correlation analyses were performed between measures of spelling and editing and word frequency and length as well as participants' scores on tests of reading, phonological spelling and phonological decoding. Methods & Procedures: A total of 16 Swedish speaking participants with post‐stroke aphasia wrote a word‐dictation task in a keystroke logging program and were tested for phonological spelling, phonological decoding and reading ability. Spelling errors were categorized and analysed. Outcomes & Results: The most common error type was omission of letter(s) and there was evidence of aphasia‐specific writing errors. Both spelling and editing difficulty were related to word frequency and word length. Successful editing was related to participants' scores on the phonological spelling task, but not to phonological decoding or reading ability. Specific editing strategies could be identified, and some strategies were individual, while others were more commonly used. Conclusions & Implications: Word length and word frequency should be taken into consideration in spelling tests for persons with aphasia, and the presence of editing difficulty should be taken into account when assessing spelling difficulties. Treatment for writing difficulties in aphasia should include training in successful editing strategies and individual fitting of digital writing aids. What this paper addsWhat is already known on the subjectPost‐stroke aphasia often causes writing and spelling difficulties. Spelling difficulties may entail editing difficulties, in turn causing extensive and/or unsuccessful editing. Extensive editing is known to impede productivity in text writing. Still, editing behaviour, abilities relating to editing or what features of a word that causes editing difficulty has not been investigated for persons with aphasia.What this paper adds to existing knowledgeThis study adds an in‐depth analysis of spelling ability, spelling errors and editing behaviour for persons with aphasia, using keystroke logging and a single‐word dictation task. Results showed that both features of the target word (frequency and word length) and the individual abilities of the person with aphasia (score on a phonological spelling task) related to spelling and editing difficulty, editing behaviour and successful editing. Specific editing strategies were analysed and described.What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?Word length and word frequency should be taken into consideration when testing single‐word spelling for persons with aphasia. When assessing spelling difficulties, both correctness of spelling as well as the presence and nature of any editing difficulties should be taken into account and treatment for writing difficulties in should include training in successful editing strategies. The fitting of digital writing aids for persons with aphasia should be individual, since many of the editing strategies used were individual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Duality of patterning has long been recognized as a unique design feature of human language and refers to the distinct bilevel structure in which words comprise one level (semantic) and word-internal, phonetic elements comprise the other level (phonological). This report describes this design feature and offers a perspective on why and how it should help shape reading interventions for children with hearing loss. Method: Three components comprise this report. The first main section offers an overview of duality of patterning. The second main section reviews results from a longitudinal study illustrating how children with and without hearing loss acquire each level of linguistic structure and how each level contributes to reading acquisition for each group differently. The third main section of this report provides suggestions for how to incorporate this information into interventions for children with hearing loss. Results: Outcomes presented illustrate that semantic structure begins to take form first, with phonological structure following. Semantic structure is related to reading comprehension, and phonological structure is related to word recognition, at least for alphabetic orthographies. Children with hearing loss acquire a less differentiated linguistic system, with structure at the phonological level only partly or coarsely acquired and with a lack of clear distinction from the semantic level of structure. Consequently, the roles of each level of structure in reading acquisition are less clearly defined for children with hearing loss. Conclusion: For children with normal hearing, learning to read is compartmentalized: Emerging sensitivity to phonological structure supports development of word recognition, and semantic-level skills support reading comprehension. Hearing loss diminishes language skills overall, but especially phonological sensitivity. Children with hearing loss, especially those with cochlear implants, must rely on all language skills to learn to read, including both word recognition and reading comprehension, which creates a highly inefficient processing strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recently proposed Reusing Inhibition for Negation (RIN) hypothesis posits that the inhibitory control mechanism is reused to understand sentential negation. The RIN hypothesis has only been tested in alphabetic languages, and its novelty requires additional support from non-alphabetic languages, like logographic non-Indo-European languages. This study examined the RIN hypothesis in the context of Mandarin, which has unique linguistic features and neural underpinnings. Participants read either affirmative or negative action-related sentences while performing an embedded Go/NoGo task. Reduced inhibition-related N2 was detected in NoGo-negative compared to NoGo-affirmative condition. Brain source estimation of the N2 interaction effect revealed strongest activation in the right inferior parietal lobule, a typical inhibition-related brain region. These results confirm the generalizability of the RIN hypothesis, suggesting that comprehension of negation in logographic Mandarin also recruits the inhibitory control mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of the second language (L2) processing of object–subject ambiguities (OSA), where the parser must revise an initially incorrect analysis of the input, have yielded two findings that the present paper addresses. First, L2 speakers are guided more strongly by plausibility information than L1 speakers in OSA processing. Second, L2 speakers generally do not perform reanalysis in real time, and their comparably poor performance on subsequent comprehension questions suggests ultimate failure to derive a grammatical parse. Because previous studies have targeted later L2 acquirers living outside of an L2 context, the present study tested whether the above two findings hold for childhood L2 acquirers with extensive naturalistic L2 exposure, hypothesizing that these factors would engender more nativelike processing. A self-paced reading task involving two kinds of OSA construction was conducted. Sensitivity to plausibility information differed across the first language and L2 groups per construction type. Within the L2 group, there is evidence that the early childhood acquirers initiated online reanalysis. Comprehension question accuracy did not differ across participant groups, suggesting that all participants succeeded in reanalysis to the same extent. The role of age of onset in L2 processing is discussed, as is the findings' relevance to current models of L2 processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This trial aimed to measure the effects of extrinsic and intrinsic factors on users' comprehension of health information provided in adapted written "easy read" material. Method: Sixty adults with intellectual disabilities undertook The Easy Read Task, randomly allocated with stratification by reading ability to one of four conditions (with and without simplified language/with and without mediation). Results: Neither linguistic complexity of the text nor mediation independently or combined made a significant difference to the understanding of information. Post hoc testing revealed that the group who received simplified language with mediation performed significantly better than the group that had complex text with mediation. None of the other differences between the remaining groups were significant. Conclusions: Constructing meaning needs to extend beyond a consideration of form as found in "easy read" documents to recognize the role of individual capacity for language processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Recent international research comparing reading abilities in children reveal distinct difficulties in reading comprehension for German students. In detail, every fifth child can only retrieve and comprehend explicit information from a written text but shows difficulties in combining information, inferencing and interpreting texts. Aims: The aim of the study is to determine specific components of language-, literacy- and cognitive skills that contribute to the difficulties in reading comprehension among students with special educational needs. Based on these specifications implications for treatment will be given. Methods: Based on the data of 184 fourth-grade students from special education school centers (Sonderpädagogische Förderzentren) correlation analysis are calculated between specific components of language-, literacy- and cognitive skills and the level of reading comprehension. Further on, regression analysis are used to determine the component with the greatest impact on reading comprehension. Results: Correlation as well as regression analysis reveal word recognition as a specific skill with the strongest influence on reading comprehension skills in students with special educational needs. Conclusion: Enhancing reading comprehension in late primary school students should especially focus on (automatized) word recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study explored the inflectional morphological awareness of Greek-speaking children with dyslexia in grade 3. The sample consisted of 24 dyslexic children and 32 chronological age-matched typically developing readers. All participants completed two oral experimental tasks of inflectional morphological awareness (i.e., verb inflections and noun-adjective inflections). The noun-adjective inflection task assessed children's ability to produce the plural of articles, adjectives, and nouns in the context of a sentence. The verb inflection task required children to change the tense of the verb in a sentence. Furthermore, phonological awareness and oral receptive vocabulary were assessed. Greek-speaking children with dyslexia faced difficulties in both inflectional tasks and in receptive vocabulary. They appeared to have greater difficulty in elicitation of non-past tense from past tense. Binary logistic regression targeted at understanding whether dyslexia can be predicted based on phonological and non-phonological oral language skills revealed that phonological awareness had a significant effect on distinguishing dyslexics from typically developing readers. Overall, our findings lead us to suggest that in an alphabetic language with a shallow orthographic system and rich morphology, children with dyslexia appear to have impaired inflectional morphological awareness and impaired vocabulary in comparison to their peers. Moreover, these results suggest the significance of teaching morphological skills in improving reading skills. However, further research is needed to substantiate these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: We investigated the relationships between text reading comprehension and oral idiom comprehension in adolescents. We also examined the more specific relationships between inference in text comprehension and inference in idiom comprehension. Method: We selected participants from an initial sample of 140 students aged 13-15 years to form 2 groups, according to their decoding and reading comprehension abilities: 1 group of good comprehenders/good decoders (n = 49) and 1 group of less skilled comprehenders but with adequate decoding skills (n = 20). The reading comprehension task comprised both literal and inferential (text-based and knowledge-based) questions. These 2 groups were then compared on an idiom comprehension task. In this task, idioms were presented orally, and students were placed in a situation that simulated a real-life oral interaction. The idioms were novel for the students (translated from a foreign language), either transparent or opaque, and presented either with a supportive context or without any context. Results: Good reading comprehenders outperformed less skilled ones on the idiom task. Both groups benefited from the supportive context, especially the good comprehenders. Knowledge-based inferences in written text comprehension were related to contextual inferences for opaque idioms, while semantic inferences for transparent idioms were related to literal text comprehension, but not to textconnecting inferences. Conclusion: These results are discussed both theoretically, in terms of cross-modal comprehension processes, and practically, in terms of implications for remediation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we performed a latent profile analysis of reading and related skills in a large (n = 733) sibpair sample of Russian readers at risk for reading difficulties. The analysis suggested the presence of seven latent profiles, of which two were characterized by relatively high performance on measures of spelling and reading comprehension and the remaining five included severely as well as moderately affected readers with deficits in the domains of phonological, orthographic, and morphological processing. The results suggest that the development and manifestation of reading difficulties in Russian is mappable on a complex pattern of interactions between different types and severities of processing deficits. The results point to the psychological reality of multiple different suboptimal patterns of deficits in reading and reading-related skills and support the multifactorial view of the disorder, with intriguing implications for future neurobiological studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two experiments were conducted to explore whether perspective influences the way readers engage with and process emotional information while reading. Texts presenting characters in an emotional situation from either a personal or an onlooker perspective were presented and reading times were measured for each sentence. Participants also provided emotional self-ratings after reading. In the first experiment, positive texts were processed with greater ease, especially when readers experienced the texts from a personal perspective. In Experiment 2, an emotional match/mismatch was inserted so that a final explicit emotion word either matched or mismatched the emotional valence of the text. Mismatch effects were stronger and more consistent for the personal perspective. The two experiments provide evidence that the perspective of the reader can influence emotion processing. Processing of emotional information was easier for the personal perspective, and readers were more sensitive to inconsistent emotional information from that perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We systematically assessed the relationships between growth of four components of verbal ability—Information, Similarities, Vocabulary, and Comprehension subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale–Revised—and longitudinal growth from Grades 1 to 9 of the Woodcock–Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery Passage Comprehension subtest while controlling for Word Identification and Word Attack, using multilevel growth models on a sample of 414 children. Growth was assessed over all grades (1-9), and separately for early grades (1-5) and later grades (5-9). Over all grades, growth in Word Identification had a substantial standardized loading to Passage Comprehension, and all four verbal abilities had smaller, but significant standardized loadings to Passage Comprehension (p < .05), with Information and Vocabulary having slightly higher loadings than Similarities and Comprehension. For early grades, results were similar to the overall results, with the exception of Vocabulary, which had a nonsignificant loading to Passage Comprehension. For later grades, Word Identification again had the largest, but substantially smaller standardized loading on Passage Comprehension and standardized loadings of all four verbal abilities were statistically significant with Vocabulary and Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children–Revised (WISC-R) Comprehension having appreciably higher loadings than in the previous analyses. Conversation- and interaction-based intervention and instruction in oral language in general, and vocabulary in particular throughout early childhood and continuing throughout the school years, combined with evidence-based instruction that systematically develops the skills of phonologic awareness, decoding, word reading, fluency, and comprehension in school, may provide a pathway to reducing the achievement gap in reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual-verbal paired associate learning (PAL) refers to the ability to establish an arbitrary association between a visual referent and an unfamiliar label. It is now established that this ability is impaired in children with dyslexia, but the source of this deficit is yet to be specified. This study assesses PAL performance in children with reading difficulties using a modified version of the PAL paradigm, comprising a comprehension and a production phase, to determine whether the PAL deficit lies in children's ability to establish and retain novel object-novel word associations or their ability to retrieve the learned novel labels for production. Results showed that while children with reading difficulties required significantly more trials to learn the object-word associations, when they were required to use these associations in a comprehension-referent selection task, their accuracy and speed did not differ from controls. Nevertheless, children with reading difficulties were significantly less successful when they were required to produce the learned novel labels in response to the visual stimuli. Thus, these results indicate that while children with reading difficulties are successful at establishing visual-verbal associations, they have a deficit in the verbal production component of PAL tasks, which may relate to a more general underlying impairment in auditory or phonological processing. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective and Method: This article describes the profiles of a cohort of 77 New Zealand children with Down syndrome (aged between 5 and 14 years) in areas of particular importance to reading development, namely phonological awareness, word level reading and letter knowledge. Assessment of reading accuracy and comprehension of connected text, as well as further phonological awareness knowledge, was measured in 25 of the more advanced readers in this cohort. Results: The findings showed the expected development with increasing age for letter knowledge, phoneme level awareness and reading tasks. Forty-two percent scored significantly above chance on a phoneme identity task, and most of the participants knew more letter names than letter sounds. Only 17% of the group scored above chance on a rhyme oddity task, and rhyme knowledge was not significantly correlated with age. The majority of the participants could read 1 or more words in isolation and 6.5% demonstrated word level reading at a 7- to 8-year level. Phoneme awareness and letter sound knowledge significantly contributed to word level reading performance. In-depth assessment for the more advanced readers suggested the participants had a comparative strength in reading accuracy compared to reading comprehension and found phonological awareness blending tasks easier than phonological segmentation tasks. Only 1 participant demonstrated strength on a rhyme generation task. Conclusion: Discussion focuses on the implications of better understanding the differing language profiles of children with Down syndrome for enhancement of their educational success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Self-paced reading and eye tracking yield different results for relative clauses. • Self-paced reading and eye tracking differ due to nature of spillover in each. • Relative clause reading times best explained by spillover and memory-based factors. • Comprehenders' expectations play a much smaller role than previous results suggest. Relative clauses have played a key role in distinguishing between different theories of language comprehension. A reversal in processing costs between full NP and pronominal relative clauses reported by Reali and Christiansen (2007) has been used to argue for expectation-based theories of comprehension (e.g., Hale, 2001; Levy, 2008), and against memory-based theories of comprehension (e.g., Gibson, 1998, 2000; Gordon, Hendrick, & Johnson, 2001; Lewis, Vasishth, & Van Dyke, 2006). We present results relying on eye-movements during reading, in conjunction with modeling of differences between self-paced reading and eye movement data, to argue that the results observed by Reali and Christiansen and others are due to the self-paced reading paradigm, and do not reflect an actual reversal in processing costs. Overall, our results suggest that a combination of memory-based factors and spillover explains the pattern of reading times observed in various relative clause experiments such as those in Reali and Christiansen (2007) , and that while comprehenders' expectations undeniably play a role in language comprehension, the role may be less dramatic than is suggested by previous studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We introduce A-maze, a Maze task with auto-generated real-word distractors. • We show that Maze tasks can be run over the web on crowdsourced participants. • A-maze and traditional G-maze both have high sensitivity in web-based experiments. Behavioral measures of incremental language comprehension difficulty form a crucial part of the empirical basis of psycholinguistics. The two most common methods for obtaining these measures have significant limitations: eye tracking studies are resource-intensive, and self-paced reading can yield noisy data with poor localization. These limitations are even more severe for web-based crowdsourcing studies, where eye tracking is infeasible and self-paced reading is vulnerable to inattentive participants. Here we make a case for broader adoption of the Maze task, involving sequential forced choice between each successive word in a sentence and a contextually inappropriate distractor. We leverage natural language processing technology to automate the most researcher-laborious part of Maze – generating distractor materials – and show that the resulting A(uto)-Maze method has dramatically superior statistical power and localization for well-established syntactic ambiguity resolution phenomena. We make our code freely available online for widespread adoption of A-maze by the psycholinguistics community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]