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Medicina Mar 2023Beyond the frequent coexistence of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and reading disorder (dyslexia), the present review aims to examine the available... (Review)
Review
Beyond the frequent coexistence of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and reading disorder (dyslexia), the present review aims to examine the available empirical evidence on how ADHD negatively impacts on learning to read. Existing data suggest that the presence of the disorder (especially inattention symptoms), may affect i) the correct acquisition of reading, either directly or through its influence on the precursors to reading; ii) decoding skills themselves (reading accuracy and fluency), both directly and indirectly through its influence on cognitive processes such as distractibility or executive functions; and iii) reading comprehension, probably indirectly through the executive and verbal memory difficulties characteristic of ADHD. These findings have important implications for better characterizing and intervening on reading difficulties in ADHD, whether clinical or subclinical.
Topics: Humans; Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity; Comprehension; Learning; Cognition; Executive Function; Dyslexia
PubMed: 36820478
DOI: No ID Found -
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 2022Language performance requires support from central cognitive/linguistic abilities as well as the more peripheral sensorimotor skills to plan and implement spoken and...
Language performance requires support from central cognitive/linguistic abilities as well as the more peripheral sensorimotor skills to plan and implement spoken and written communication. Both output modalities are vulnerable to impairment following damage to the language-dominant hemisphere, but much of the research to date has focused exclusively on spoken language. In this study we aimed to examine an integrated model of language processing that includes the common cognitive processes that support spoken and written language, as well as modality-specific skills. To do so, we evaluated spoken and written language performance from 87 individuals with acquired language impairment resulting from damage to left perisylvian cortical regions that collectively constitute the dorsal language pathway. Comprehensive behavioral assessment served to characterize the status of central and peripheral components of language processing in relation to neurotypical controls ( = 38). Performance data entered into principal components analyses (with or without control scores) consistently yielded a strong five-factor solution. In line with a primary systems framework, three central cognitive factors emerged: semantics, phonology, and orthography that were distinguished from peripheral processes supporting speech production and allographic skill for handwriting. The central phonology construct reflected performance on phonological awareness and manipulation tasks and showed the greatest deficit of all the derived factors. Importantly, this phonological construct was orthogonal to the speech production factor that reflected repetition of words/non-words. When entered into regression analyses, semantics and phonological skill were common predictors of language performance across spoken and written modalities. The speech production factor was also a strong, distinct predictor of spoken naming and oral reading, in contrast to allographic skills which only predicted written output. As expected, visual orthographic processing contributed more to written than spoken language tasks and reading/spelling performance was strongly reliant on phonological and semantic abilities. Despite the heterogeneity of this cohort regarding aphasia type and severity, the marked impairment of phonological skill was a unifying feature. These findings prompt greater attention to clinical assessment and potential treatment of underlying phonological skill in individuals with left perisylvian damage.
PubMed: 36419644
DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.1025468 -
Advanced Science (Weinheim,... Jun 2023Dyslexia is a reading and spelling disorder due to neurodevelopmental abnormalities and is occasionally found to be accompanied by hearing loss, but the reason for the...
Dyslexia is a reading and spelling disorder due to neurodevelopmental abnormalities and is occasionally found to be accompanied by hearing loss, but the reason for the associated deafness remains unclear. This study finds that knockout of the dyslexia susceptibility 1 candidate 1 gene (Dyx1c1 ) in mice, the best gene for studying dyslexia, causes severe hearing loss, and thus it is a good model for studying the mechanism of dyslexia-related hearing loss (DRHL). This work finds that the Dyx1c1 gene is highly expressed in the mouse cochlea and that the spontaneous electrical activity of inner hair cells and type I spiral ganglion neurons is altered in the cochleae of Dyx1c1 mice. In addition, primary ciliary dyskinesia-related phenotypes such as situs inversus and disrupted ciliary structure are seen in Dyx1c1 mice. In conclusion, this study gives new insights into the mechanism of DRHL in detail and suggests that Dyx1c1 may serve as a potential target for the clinical diagnosis of DRHL.
Topics: Animals; Mice; Spiral Ganglion; Nerve Tissue Proteins; Dyslexia; Neurons; Hearing Loss
PubMed: 37068190
DOI: 10.1002/advs.202205754 -
Brain Sciences Mar 2020This editorial follows an influential review paper published in Brain Sciences in 2018 ( by John Stein). In this editorial, I present a critical look at the arguments in...
This editorial follows an influential review paper published in Brain Sciences in 2018 ( by John Stein). In this editorial, I present a critical look at the arguments in Stein's review, with a particular view towards "looking ahead". In looking ahead, I will focus on why dyslexia has been largely neglected by psycholinguistics and, in particular, shortfalls in knowledge about sentence processing. I will highlight some things that I think psycholinguistic methodologies can contribute to the understanding of developmental dyslexia. The editorial will then turn to address the larger research context of dyslexia. In short, investigations of dyslexia tend to be conducted across a wide range of disciplines, and by individuals with varied backgrounds, divergent views, and different goals. One argument I advance is that dyslexia has reached a point where "interdisciplinary" collaboration is essential, and in the event that that is not successful, the field would at least benefit from "adversarial collaborations". Finally, I briefly address the issue of interventions (raised by Stein) for older children and adolescents by returning to the contributions that psycholinguistics can provide to dyslexia. The crux of my argument here is that there exists a missing link in interventions, and that missing link is sentence-level language comprehension.
PubMed: 32155923
DOI: 10.3390/brainsci10030151 -
Annals of Dyslexia Oct 2023Different definitions and tests of dyslexia can cause unfairness and make life difficult for people with dyslexia as well as for the professionals. In 2012, the Danish...
Different definitions and tests of dyslexia can cause unfairness and make life difficult for people with dyslexia as well as for the professionals. In 2012, the Danish government decided to support the fight against dyslexia. The government issued a public tender for the development of "a standardized, electronically administered test of dyslexia for use […] from primary Grade 3 and up through all educational levels to 5-year university education." The present paper reports from the development of this National Dyslexia Test. The paper focuses on the definition of dyslexia and the composition, reliability, and validity of the test. Data from the development of the test demonstrate the psychometric properties of the test. Reliability was indicated by a high agreement between the two (computer-administered) measures that are part of the test. External convergent validity was indicated by a high agreement between test results and results from prior practice and by agreement between test results and reading comprehension of educational texts. The paper concludes with a discussion of the practical uses and potential issues with the test since its release in 2015.
Topics: Humans; Dyslexia; Reading; Reproducibility of Results; Comprehension; Educational Status
PubMed: 37418132
DOI: 10.1007/s11881-023-00285-5 -
Perspectives on Psychological Science :... Jul 2023We argue that the educational and psychological sciences must embrace the diversity of reading rather than chase the phantom of normal reading behavior. We critically...
We argue that the educational and psychological sciences must embrace the diversity of reading rather than chase the phantom of normal reading behavior. We critically discuss the research practice of asking participants in experiments to read "normally." We then draw attention to the large cross-cultural and linguistic diversity around the world and consider the enormous diversity of reading situations and goals. Finally, we observe that people bring a huge diversity of brains and experiences to the reading task. This leads to four implications: First, there are important lessons for how to conduct psycholinguistic experiments; second, we need to move beyond Anglocentric reading research and produce models of reading that reflect the large cross-cultural diversity of languages and types of writing systems; third, we must acknowledge that there are multiple ways of reading and reasons for reading, and none of them is normal or better or a "gold standard"; and fourth, we must stop stigmatizing individuals who read differently and for different reasons, and there should be increased focus on teaching the ability to extract information relevant to the person's goals. What is important is not how well people decode written language and how fast people read but what people comprehend given their own stated goals.
Topics: Humans; Reading; Dyslexia; Language; Writing; Linguistics
PubMed: 36355578
DOI: 10.1177/17456916221127226 -
Vision Research Dec 2019The processing of letters within strings is challenging for beginning readers. Letter identification is affected by visual similarity, loss of information with...
The processing of letters within strings is challenging for beginning readers. Letter identification is affected by visual similarity, loss of information with eccentricity and interference from nearby letters. In contrast, visual attention enhances letter identification. We here explored whether visual attention resources for multi-element processing, as measured through tasks of visual attention span prior to literacy instruction, predicted reading fluency performance one year later. One hundred and twenty-four mainstream children were assessed in kindergarten on their visual attention span abilities, phonological awareness, letter-name knowledge, early literacy knowledge, verbal short-term memory and non-verbal IQ. The participants' reading performance was measured at the end of grade 1 using tasks of irregular word, pseudo-word and text reading. Results from regression analyses showed that kindergarteners' VA span predicted reading fluency for text, irregular words and pseudo-words one year later, after controlling for age, non-verbal IQ, phonological skills, letter name knowledge and early literacy skills. Path analyses carried out to estimate the differential contribution of VA span to the different reading skills revealed a stronger contribution for pseudo-word reading than irregular word or text reading at the end of Grade 1. These results suggest that pre-reading visual attention resources contribute to later reading fluency, whatever the reading subskills and whatever the reading context (words in isolation or in sentences), with higher involvement to pseudo-word reading. We propose a new conceptual model of the role of visual attention in reading acquisition and argue that many aspects of the models are already supported by available findings.
Topics: Attention; Awareness; Child; Child, Preschool; Dyslexia; Female; Humans; Male; Memory, Short-Term; Reading; Visual Perception
PubMed: 31751900
DOI: 10.1016/j.visres.2019.10.011 -
Frontiers in Public Health 2022Dyslexia is a disorder characterized by an impaired ability to understand written and printed words or phrases. Epidemiological longitudinal data show that dyslexia is... (Meta-Analysis)
Meta-Analysis
Dyslexia is a disorder characterized by an impaired ability to understand written and printed words or phrases. Epidemiological longitudinal data show that dyslexia is highly prevalent, affecting 10-20% of the population regardless of gender. This study aims to provide a detailed overview of research status and development characteristics of dyslexia from types of articles, years, countries, institutions, journals, authors, author keywords, and highly cited papers. A total of 9,166 publications have been retrieved from the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) and Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-E) from 2000 to 2021. The United States of America, United Kingdom, and Germany were the top three most productive countries in terms of the number of publications. China, Israel, and Japan led the Asia research on dyslexia. University of Oxford had the most publications and won first place in terms of h-index. was the most productive journal in this field and Psychology was the most used subject category. Keywords analysis indicated that "developmental dyslexia," "phonological awareness," children and fMRI were still the main research topics. "Literacy," "rapid automatized naming (RAN)," "assessment," "intervention," "meta-analysis," "Chinese," "executive function," "morphological awareness," "decoding," "dyscalculia," "EEG," "Eye tracking," "rhythm," "bilingualism," and "functional connectivity" might become the new research hotspots.
Topics: Asia; Bibliometrics; Child; China; Dyslexia; Humans; United Kingdom; United States
PubMed: 35812514
DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.915053 -
Biomedicines Sep 2023Reading involves many different abilities that are necessary or sufficient conditions for fluent and flawless reading. The absence of one necessary or of all sufficient...
Reading involves many different abilities that are necessary or sufficient conditions for fluent and flawless reading. The absence of one necessary or of all sufficient conditions is a cause of dyslexia. The present study investigates whether too short fixation times and an impaired ability to recognize a string of letters simultaneously are causes of dyslexia. The frequency and types of reading mistakes were investigated in a tachistoscopic pseudoword experiment with 100 children with dyslexia to test the impact of too short fixation times and the attempts of children with dyslexia to recognize more letters simultaneously than they can when reading pseudowords. The experiment demonstrates that all types of reading mistakes disappear when the fixation time increases and/or the number of letters that the children try to recognize simultaneously is reduced. The results cannot be interpreted as being due to altered visual crowding, impaired attention, or impaired phonological awareness, but can be regarded as an effect of impaired temporal summation and a dysfunction in the ventral stream of the visual system.
PubMed: 37760998
DOI: 10.3390/biomedicines11092559 -
Cortex; a Journal Devoted To the Study... Mar 2023With effort, most literate persons can conjure more or less vague visual mental images of the written form of words they are hearing, an ability afforded by the links...
With effort, most literate persons can conjure more or less vague visual mental images of the written form of words they are hearing, an ability afforded by the links between sounds, meaning, and letters. However, as first reported by Francis Galton, persons with ticker-tape synesthesia (TTS) automatically perceive in their mind's eye accurate and vivid images of the written form of all utterances which they are hearing. We propose that TTS results from an atypical setup of the brain reading system, with an increased top-down influence of phonology on orthography. As a first descriptive step towards a deeper understanding of TTS, we identified 26 persons with TTS. Participants had to answer to a questionnaire aiming to describe the phenomenology of TTS along multiple dimensions, including visual and temporal features, triggering stimuli, voluntary control, interference with language processing, etc. We also assessed the synesthetic percepts elicited experimentally by auditory stimuli such as non-speech sounds, pseudowords, and words with various types of correspondence between sounds and letters. We discuss the potential cerebral substrates of those features, argue that TTS may provide a unique window in the mechanisms of written language processing and acquisition, and propose an agenda for future research.
Topics: Humans; Synesthesia; Speech; Brain; Language; Dyslexia; Color Perception; Perceptual Disorders
PubMed: 36609103
DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2022.11.005