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Past studies have shown that multimodal presentation of story can improve story-retelling performance in the first language. The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether similar multimedia effects can be observed in second language learning and graphic novel reading. A total of 51 Chinese elementary school children, aged 7-8, who were learning English as a second language were recruited. They were randomly assigned to one of the three experimental conditions that differed in the format of story presentation: English text, English text with pictorial illustrations or graphic novel. After reading the same story, the children retold the story in English. The narratives produced were then rated by two independent raters. The results of group comparison showed that children from the three experimental groups had similar performance, indicating that multimedia presentation may not always facilitate narrative production in English as a second language. Within-subject comparison further showed that the children were relatively strong in language skills and capturing the main ideas of the story, while showing weakness in story structure awareness, elaboration, as well as local and global cohesion. Suggestions for the application of multimodal presentation of narrative texts are discussed.

One salient characteristic of twin studies and the related behavioral genetics paradigm is the requirement of a large sample size. Countries or regions that are large in size and highly populated are at an advantage when implementing twin studies. However, given the fascinating and promising results obtained from twin studies, many researchers based in smaller countries or regions may still want to conduct twin studies in order to address local and theoretical issues. In this article, we have outlined the development of twin studies in Hong Kong, one of the Special Administrative Regions of China. The historical development and design of the two major twin studies of language and reading development implemented within Hong Kong are discussed, providing insights to researchers who also aspire to conduct twin studies in small regions.

This twin study examined the relative contributions of genes and environment on 2nd language reading acquisition of Chinese-speaking children learning English. We examined whether specific skills-visual word recognition, receptive vocabulary, phonological awareness, phonological memory, and speech discrimination-in the 1st and 2nd languages have distinct or overlapping genetic and environmental origins. A sample of 279 Chinese twin pairs with a mean age of 6 years was tested. Univariate twin analyses were used to identify sources of individual variations in reading abilities and related cognitive-linguistic skills in Chinese and English, respectively. They were used to show both similar and distinctive patterns in these skills across Chinese and English. Bivariate Cholesky decomposition analyses indicated genetic overlaps between all parallel Chinese and English variables, as well as shared environmental overlaps in receptive vocabulary and phonological awareness. The phenotypic correlations between 1st and 2nd language skills previously observed in cross-linguistic studies could be explained by the shared genetic and environmental influences found in this twin study. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).

Background: This work tested the rates at which Chinese children with either language delay or familial history of dyslexia at age 5 manifested dyslexia at age 7, identified which cognitive skills at age 5 best distinguished children with and without dyslexia at age 7, and examined how these early abilities predicted subsequent literacy skills., Method: Forty-seven at-risk children (21 who were initially language delayed and 26 with familial risk) and 47 control children matched on age, IQ, and mothers' education were tested on syllable awareness, tone detection, rapid automatized naming, visual skill, morphological awareness, and word reading at age 5 and subsequently tested for dyslexia on a standard Hong Kong measure at age 7., Results: Of those with an early language delay, 62% subsequently manifested dyslexia; for those with familial risk, the rate of dyslexia was 50%. Those with dyslexia were best distinguished from those without dyslexia by the age-5 measures of morphological awareness, rapid automatized naming, and word reading itself; other measures did not distinguish the groups. In a combined regression analysis across all participants, morphological awareness uniquely explained word reading accuracy and rapid automatized naming uniquely explained timed word reading at age 7, with all other measures statistically controlled. Separate stepwise regression analyses by group indicated that visual skill uniquely explained subsequent literacy skills in the at-risk group only, whereas tone and syllable awareness were unique predictors of literacy skills in the control group only., Conclusions: Both early language delay and familial risk strongly overlap with subsequent dyslexia in Chinese children. Overall, rapid automatized naming and morphological awareness are relatively strong correlates of developmental dyslexia in Chinese; visual skill and phonological awareness may also be uniquely associated with subsequent literacy development in at-risk and typically developing children, respectively., (© 2010 The Authors. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. © 2010 Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.)

Clarifying whether automatization deficits constitute the primary causes or symptoms of developmental dyslexia, we focused on three critical issues of the dyslexic automatization deficit, namely universality, domain specificity, and severity. Thirty Chinese dyslexic children (mean age 10 years and 5 months), 30 chronological-age-, and 30 reading-level-matched children were tested in 4 areas of automaticity: motor, visual search, Stroop facilitation effects, and automatic word recognition. The results showed that the dyslexic children performed significantly worse than the CA-controls but not the RL-controls in all the tasks except for Stroop congruent-color words, on which they performed worse than children in both control groups. The deficits reflect a lag in reading experiences rather than a persistent cognitive deficit.

This study examined temporal processing in relation to Chinese reading acquisition and impairment. The performances of 26 Chinese primary school children with developmental dyslexia on tasks of visual and auditory temporal order judgement, rapid naming, visual-orthographic knowledge, morphological, and phonological awareness were compared with those of 26 reading level ability controls (RL) and 26 chronological age controls (CA). Dyslexic children performed worse than the CA group but similar to the RL group on measures of accurate processing of auditory and visual-order stimuli, rapid naming, morphological awareness, and phonological awareness and a minority performed worse on the two temporal processing tasks. However, hierarchical regression analyses revealed that visual but not auditory temporal processing contributed unique variance to Chinese character recognition even with other cognitive measures controlled, suggesting it may be as important a correlate of reading ability in Chinese as in alphabetic scripts.

This twin study examined how family socioeconomic status ( SES) and home literacy environment ( HLE) contributes to Chinese language and reading skills. It included 312 Chinese twin pairs aged 3 to 11. Children were individually administered tasks of Chinese word reading, receptive vocabulary and reading-related cognitive skills, and nonverbal reasoning ability. Information on home environment was collected through parent-reported questionnaires. Results showed that SES and HLE mediated shared environmental influences but did not moderate genetic influences on general language and reading abilities. Also, SES and HLE mediated shared environmental contributions to receptive vocabulary and syllable and rhyme awareness, but not orthographic skills. The findings of this study add to past twin studies that focused on alphabetic languages, suggesting that these links could be universal across languages. They also extend existing findings on SES and HLE's contributions to reading-related cognitive skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focused on the associations of general auditory processing, speech perception, phonological awareness and word reading in Cantonese-speaking children from Hong Kong learning to read both Chinese (first language [L1]) and English (second language [L2]). Children in Grades 2-4 ( N=133) participated and were administered measures of IQ, word reading, phonological awareness, speech perception and auditory processing in both L1 and L2. Auditory processing uniquely explained both L1 and L2 word reading. While L1 speech perception accounted for unique variance in L1 word reading, L2 phonological awareness explained unique variance in L2 word reading. In cross-language comparisons, L1 phonological awareness and speech perception were uniquely associated with L2 word reading, suggesting cross-language transfer from L1 to L2 only. Results underscore the importance of auditory processing for reading across variable learning contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]