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Abstract In a longitudinal study, we investigated the direct and indirect contributions of two aspects of executive functioning - attentional and behavioral control - to the development of early literacy and numeracy in kindergarten and first grade. Ninety children (mean age = 6.0 years at Time 1) were assessed on multiple direct measures of executive functioning, as well as phonological awareness and number sense in kindergarten, and word reading and mathematics in first grade. Structural equation models showed that both attentional and behavioral control predicted phonological awareness and number sense. Attentional control had an indirect (via phonological awareness) effect on word reading only, while behavioral control had a direct effect on mathematics and an indirect effect (via phonological awareness) on word reading. Since attentional and behavioral control differentially relate to the emergence of literacy and numeracy, it is concluded that executive functioning has domain-specific effects on children's development. Highlights • Attentional and behavioral control are two components of executive functioning. • These components relate differentially to early literacy and numeracy development. • Attentional and behavioral control predict phonological awareness and number sense. • Attentional control predicts word reading via phonological awareness. • Behavioral control directly predicts mathematics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study explored the direct and indirect contribution of semantic abilities to the levels of phonological and orthographic abilities in children with dyslexia. The semantic abilities of fifty‐five 9‐year‐old Dutch children diagnosed with dyslexia were associated with their phonological abilities (phonological awareness, rapid naming, and verbal working memory) and their word decoding and pseudoword decoding efficiency scores. It was found that children's semantic abilities predicted both word decoding efficiency and pseudoword decoding efficiency indirectly via phonological awareness and rapid naming. These results can be explained in terms of a lexical restructuring account of early reading development; strong semantic abilities provide children with dyslexia with a boost to strengthen their phonological skills and naming skills, which indirectly facilitate their reading development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Word reading and oral language predict reading comprehension, which is generally poor, in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, working memory (WM), despite documented weaknesses, has not been thoroughly investigated as a predictor of reading comprehension in ASD. This study examined the role of three parallel WM N-back tasks using abstract shapes, familiar objects, and written words in children (8-14 years) with ASD (n = 19) and their typically developing peers (n = 24). All three types of WM were significant predictors of reading comprehension when considered alone. However, these relationships were rendered non-significant with the addition of age, word reading, vocabulary, and group entered into the models. Oral vocabulary emerged as the strongest predictor of reading comprehension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we investigated the contribution of morphological awareness (MA) in one language to word reading and vocabulary in another language in Hong Kong Cantonese-English speaking children, who learn Chinese and English in school in parallel from the age of 3.5 years onwards. Our sample consisted of 97 Cantonese-English speaking children including 34 first graders, 28 second graders, 21 third graders and 14 fourth graders. All children were administered tasks of nonverbal reasoning, phonological awareness in Chinese, and lexical compounding, vocabulary, and word reading in both Chinese and English. Results revealed that second language (L2) English MA significantly contributed to first language (L1) Chinese word reading and Chinese vocabulary knowledge. However, L1 Chinese MA was not uniquely associated with either L2 English word reading or vocabulary knowledge. Findings suggest that among Chinese children learning in Chinese medium of instruction schools with English taught as a second language, compounding skills in English may be useful for facilitating Chinese word reading and vocabulary acquisition, but Chinese compounding skills are not uniquely important for learning in English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of cross-linguistic research has suggested that morphological awareness plays a key role in both L1 and L2 word reading among bilingual readers. However, little is known about the interaction and development of L1 and L2 morphological awareness in relation to word reading. We addressed this issue by evaluating the unique contributions of L1 Chinese and L2 English morphological awareness to word reading in both Chinese and English across Grades 2 (N = 150), 5 (N = 158), and 8 (N = 159) Hong Kong Chinese-English bilingual children. Children completed five tasks of Chinese morphological awareness which tapped for compounding awareness, homophone awareness, homographic awareness, semantic radical awareness, and affix awareness, and six English morphological judgment and analogy tasks that assessed morphological awareness at three levels: inflection, derivation, and compounding. English phonological awareness, Chinese and English vocabulary, and nonverbal ability were measured as controls. Word reading was assessed in both languages. Within-language analyses revealed that Chinese morphological awareness accounted for 27, 22, and 12% of unique variances in Chinese word reading above the control measures in Grades 2, 5, and 8 respectively. In contrast, English morphological awareness explained small but significant unique variances in English word reading, i.e., 4, 8, and 2%, across Grades 2, 5, and 8 respectively. Critically, there were cross-language influences: Chinese morphological awareness explained 4% of unique variance in English word reading in Grade 2 after controlling for IQ, English vocabulary, English phonological awareness, and English morphological awareness; English morphological awareness explained significant variances in Chinese word reading, i.e., 4, 3, and 4% in Grades 2, 5, and 8 respectively, after the relevant controls. These findings suggest a bi-directional cross-language transfer of morphological awareness to word reading in L1 Chinese and L2 English. However, the direction of its transfer may be constrained by some language-specific morphological features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a model of Arabic word reading according to which three conspicuous features of the Arabic language and orthography shape the development of word reading in this language: (a) vowelization/vocalization, or the use of diacritical marks to represent short vowels and other features of articulation; (b) morphological structure, namely, the predominance and transparency of derivational morphological structure in the linguistic and orthographic representation of the Arabic word; and (c) diglossia, specifically, the lexical and lexico-phonological distance between the spoken and the standard forms of Arabic words. It is argued that the triangulation of these features governs the acquisition and deployment of reading mechanisms across development. Moreover, the difficulties that readers encounter in their journey from beginning to skilled reading may be better understood if evaluated within these language-specific features of Arabic language and orthography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated the extent to which working memory and behavioral attention predicted reading and listening comprehension in grades 1 through 3 and, whether their relative contributions differed by modality and grade. Separate grade samples (N = 370; ns = 125, 123, and 122 for grades 1, 2, and 3 respectively) completed multiple measures of word reading, working memory, and parallel measures of reading and listening comprehension. Teachers and parents provided behavioral attention ratings. Concurrently, working memory was more important for listening than for reading comprehension and predicted significant variance in both modalities across grades, after controlling for background measures and behavioral attention ratings. For both modalities, working memory explained the greatest proportion of variance in grade 3. Behavioral attention predicted variance in grades 1 and 2 for reading comprehension and all grades for listening comprehension. Subsidiary analyses demonstrated that the influence of working memory and behavioral attention on reading comprehension was indirect, through word reading and listening comprehension both concurrently and also longitudinally between grades 1-3. These findings indicate that delivery of classroom materials orally will not always be beneficial to the young beginner reader or one who struggles with word decoding, and that children with poor working memory/attention may require additional support to access meaning from both written and spoken text. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report a comprehensive cartography of selective responses to visual letters and words in the human ventral occipito-temporal cortex (VOTC) with direct neural recordings, clarifying key aspects of the neural basis of reading. Intracerebral recordings were performed in a large group of patients (n = 37) presented with visual words inserted periodically in rapid sequences of pseudofonts, nonwords, or pseudowords, enabling classification of responses at three levels of word processing: letter, prelexical, and lexical. While letter-selective responses are found in much of the VOTC, with a higher proportion in left posterior regions, prelexical/lexical responses are confined to the middle and anterior sections of the left fusiform gyrus. This region overlaps with and extends more anteriorly than the visual word form area typically identified with functional magnetic resonance imaging. In this region, prelexical responses provide evidence for populations of neurons sensitive to the statistical regularity of letter combinations independently of lexical responses to familiar words. Despite extensive sampling in anterior ventral temporal regions, there is no hierarchical organization between prelexical and lexical responses in the left fusiform gyrus. Overall, distinct word processing levels depend on neural populations that are spatially intermingled rather than organized according to a strict postero-anterior hierarchy in the left VOTC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People who are born deaf often have difficulty learning to read. Recently, several studies have examined the neural substrates involved in reading in deaf people and found a left lateralized reading system similar to hearing people involving temporo-parietal, inferior frontal, and ventral occipito-temporal cortices. Previous studies in typical hearing readers show that within this reading network there are separate regions that specialize in processing orthography and phonology. We used fMRI rapid adaptation in deaf adults who were skilled readers to examine neural selectivity in three functional ROIs in the left hemisphere: temporoparietal cortex (TPC), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), and the visual word form area (VWFA). Results show that in deaf skilled readers, the left VWFA showed selectivity for orthography similar to what has been reported for hearing readers, the TPC showed less sensitivity to phonology than previously reported for hearing readers using the same paradigm, and the IFG showed selectivity to orthography, but not phonology (similar to what has been reported previously for hearing readers). These results provide evidence that while skilled deaf readers demonstrate coarsely tuned phonological representations in the TPC, they develop finely tuned representations for the orthography of written words in the VWFA and IFG. This result suggests that phonological tuning in the TPC may have little impact on the neural network associated with skilled reading for deaf adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examined the impact of performance validity test (PVT) failure on the Test of Premorbid Functioning (TOPF) in a sample of 252 neuropsychological patients. Word reading performance differed significantly according to PVT failure status, and number of PVTs failed accounted for 7.4% of the variance in word reading performance, even after controlling for education. Furthermore, individuals failing ≥2 PVTs were twice as likely as individuals passing all PVTs (33% vs. 16%) to have abnormally low obtained word reading scores relative to demographically predicted scores when using a normative base rate of 10% to define abnormality. When compared with standardization study clinical groups, those failing ≥2 PVTs were twice as likely as patients with moderate to severe traumatic brain injury and as likely as patients with Alzheimer’s dementia to obtain abnormally low TOPF word reading scores. Findings indicate that TOPF word reading based estimates of premorbid functioning should not be interpreted in individuals invalidating cognitive testing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on theories of cross-language transfer (Cummins, 1979; Weinreich, 1953), this study examines the longitudinal relations between young Chinese children's letter-name knowledge and their Chinese word reading and number competencies in a multilingual context. A total of 109 young Hong Kong Chinese children were assessed first at the end of their nursery year (Time 1; approximately 3 years of age) and then during the first semester of their kindergarten year (Time 2). The results show that letter-name knowledge measured at Time 1 was significantly predictive of Chinese word reading and number competencies at Time 2. Moreover, these relations remained significant after controlling for a large pool of child- and family-level variables. The findings underscore the role of letter-name knowledge in explaining young Hong Kong Chinese children's shared development of Chinese reading and mathematics skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Precision Teaching (PT) is an evidence-based intervention, which research indicates is frequently not implemented following training, with few teachers using it in schools after training events. The web-based programme in this research focuses on word-level reading skills and targets blending and segmenting skills rather than whole word reading. This research, undertaken with 10 schools, explored whether a web-based PT programme would provide favourable implementation rates, and support the fidelity of the programme delivery. The study also measured the impact of the PT programme on word decoding and sight word reading using the Test of Word Reading Efficiency. Results suggest favourable implementation rates with 7 of the 10 schools implementing the programme. Full impact data for 34 children suggest that the programme has a positive impact on decoding (effect size 0.7) and sight word reading skills (effect size 0.6). A timed assessment provides evidence that fluency improved as well as accuracy. Gains were sustained at two-month follow-up. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ability to read is essential for cognitive development. To deepen our understanding of reading acquisition, we explored the neuroanatomical correlates (cortical thickness; CT) of word-reading fluency and sentence comprehension efficiency in Chinese with a group of typically developing children (N = 21; 12 females and 9 males; age range 10.7-12.3 years). Then, we investigated the relationship between the CT of reading-defined regions and the cognitive subcomponents of reading to determine whether our study lends support to the multi-component model. The results demonstrated that children's performance on oral word reading was positively correlated with CT in the left superior temporal gyrus (LSTG), left inferior temporal gyrus (LITG), left supramarginal gyrus (LSMG) and right superior temporal gyrus (RSTG). Moreover, CT in the LSTG, LSMG and LITG uniquely predicted children's phonetic representation, phonological awareness, and orthography-phonology mapping skills, respectively. By contrast, children's performance on sentence-reading comprehension was positively correlated with CT in the left parahippocampus (LPHP) and right calcarine fissure (RVI). As for the subcomponents of reading, CT in the LPHP was exclusively correlated with morphological awareness, whereas CT in the RVI was correlated with orthography-semantic mapping. Taken together, these findings indicate that the reading network of typically developing children consists of multiple sub-divisions, thus providing neuroanatomical evidence in support of the multi-componential view of reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated whether brain activity in Dutch-French bilinguals during semantic access to concepts from one language could be used to predict neural activation during access to the same concepts from another language, in different language modalities/tasks. This was tested using multi-voxel pattern analysis (MVPA), within and across language comprehension (word listening and word reading) and production (picture naming). It was possible to identify the picture or word named, read or heard in one language (e.g. maan , meaning moon ) based on the brain activity in a distributed bilateral brain network while, respectively, naming, reading or listening to the picture or word in the other language (e.g. lune ). The brain regions identified differed across tasks. During picture naming, brain activation in the occipital and temporal regions allowed concepts to be predicted across languages. During word listening and word reading, across-language predictions were observed in the rolandic operculum and several motor-related areas (pre- and postcentral, the cerebellum). In addition, across-language predictions during reading were identified in regions typically associated with semantic processing (left inferior frontal, middle temporal cortex, right cerebellum and precuneus) and visual processing (inferior and middle occipital regions and calcarine sulcus). Furthermore, across modalities and languages, the left lingual gyrus showed semantic overlap across production and word reading. These findings support the idea of at least partially language- and modality-independent semantic neural representations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the role of morphological awareness in understanding Chinese word reading and dictation among Chinese-speaking adolescent readers in Hong Kong as well as the cognitive-linguistic profile of early adolescent readers with dyslexia. Fifty-four readers with dyslexia in Grades 5 and 6 were compared with 54 chronological age-matched (CA) typical readers on the following measures of cognitive-linguistic and literacy skills: morphological awareness, phonological awareness, visual-orthographic knowledge, rapid naming, vocabulary knowledge, verbal short-term memory (STM), Chinese word reading, and dictation (or spelling). The results indicated that early adolescent readers with dyslexia performed less well than the typical readers on all cognitive-linguistic and literacy measures except the phonological measures. Both groups' scores showed substantial correlations between morphological awareness and Chinese word reading and dictation. Visual-orthographic knowledge and rapid naming were also associated with dictation in early adolescent readers with and without dyslexia, respectively. Moderated multiple regression analyses further revealed that morphological awareness and rapid naming explained unique variance in word reading and dictation for the readers with dyslexia and typical readers separately after controlling readers' age and group effect. These results highlight the potential importance of morphological awareness and rapid naming in Chinese word reading and writing in Chinese early adolescents' literacy development and impairment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dual-component model postulates that working memory capacity consists of two dissociable components: maintenance in primary memory (PM) and retrieval from secondary memory (SM). Recent application of this model to attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has revealed that the SM component is more deficient than the PM component across both verbal and spatial modalities. The present study attempts to strengthen this conclusion by addressing two weaknesses in the previous study. First, the present study shows that the SM component continues to be more deficient than the PM component across both modalities under conditions in which (1) all participants were instructed to use the same recall strategy (resulting in the exclusion of fewer participants); and, (2) individual differences in this strategy were controlled. Second, the present study also documents a group difference in word reading efficiency that is confounded with diagnostic status and that might have influenced estimates of PM and SM capacities in the verbal modality. However, although the SM component is more deficient than the PM component in the ADHD group, the magnitude of this interaction does not vary as a function task modality. These findings are interpreted to suggest that the pattern of WM deficiencies observed are part of a causal pathway that can lead to the symptoms of ADHD, as well as to impairments in reading (and intelligence) due to overlapping cue-dependent retrieval mechanisms. These findings provide additional support for the notion that the SM component of WM is an important and neglected target for treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since Stroop (1935), semantic access has been seen as automatic but today this is questioned, following minor modifications of the Stroop task. Besner, Stolz and Boutilier (1997) showed that coloring a single letter differently from the others and asking the participant to name the color of this letter, significantly reduced the Stroop effect. Huguet, Galvaing, Monteil and Dumas (1999) showed that another person’s presence during the test significantly reduced the Stroop effect. Raz, Shapiro, Fan and Posner (2002) showed a reduction in Stroop effect when hypnotized participants were told what would appear on the screen was not a word. These reductions suggest that semantic access of a word needs attentional resources, and is not automatic. This review summarizes recent results concerning reduction of the Stroop effect through the three manipulations mentioned above. The similarities and conflicts of these studies are illustrated. The conclusions suggest that these manipulations seem not to reduce or prevent automatic semantic activation, but rather reduce non-semantic task-relevant response competition. Using measures other than behavioral measures like Event-Related Potentials and a new definition of automaticity are proposed to understand better the different results cited.