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While research has established a close relationship between children’s oral vocabulary and reading ability in Chinese, the nature of this relationship is not clear. This study aims to examine if vocabulary knowledge of Chinese words... more
While research has established a close relationship between children’s oral vocabulary and reading ability in Chinese, the nature of this relationship is not clear. This study aims to examine if vocabulary knowledge of Chinese words facilitates learning novel orthographic forms during independent reading. We also investigate whether such oral vocabulary is to complement phonological decoding, which has been considered the primary underpinning of orthographic learning, or whether it makes a unique contribution to the acquisition of novel orthographic representations in Chinese. Data from two studies (Li et al. in Cognition 176:184–194, 2018; Li et al. in Sci Stud Read. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2020.1781863 ) were re-analysed (total N = 164). In these studies, children learned the oral vocabulary of some novel Chinese words and subsequently saw their written forms as pseudocharacters in short stories. The phonetic regularity of the pseudocharacters was manipulated such that half of them could be reliably decoded via the phonetic radical (regular) and the other half could not (irregular). The results showed that oral vocabulary learning was significantly associated with orthographic learning and pseudocharacter reading in natural text. Importantly, item-specific oral vocabulary knowledge predicted the success of orthographic learning and reading accuracy of both regular and irregular pseudocharacters. These results provide evidence that oral vocabulary makes a unique contribution to children’s orthographic learning in Chinese during independent reading.
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This research examines the acquisition of letter-position processing. Study 1 investigated letter-position processing in Grades 1–6 and adult readers, using the occurrence of specific error types as the outcome measure. Between Grades 1... more
This research examines the acquisition of letter-position processing. Study 1 investigated letter-position processing in Grades 1–6 and adult readers, using the occurrence of specific error types as the outcome measure. Between Grades 1 and 2, there was a shift from making more other-word to making more letter-position errors. This shift was a function of reading proficiency, not of years of reading instruction. Based on the multiple-route model of reading development (Grainger, Lété, Bertand, Dufau, & Ziegler, 2012), we argue that the fact that children make fewer other-word errors (i.e., mostly letter-identity errors) opens up the opportunity for them to make “the more advanced” letter-position errors. Finally, skilled adult readers still made fewer letter-position errors than typical readers in Grade 6, suggesting that the acquisition process is not finalized by the end of primary school. In Study 2, we directly compared letter-position processing with letter-identity processing. Thirty children in Grade 3 and 30 children in Grade 4 read aloud words with and without higher-frequency distractors. Children more often misread a word with a higher-frequency distractor than without such a distractor and this effect was stronger for below-average than for above-average readers. Converging with the results of Study 1, we found that a letter-position distractor is more disruptive than a letter-identity distractor. These results confirm that the acquisition of letter-position processing lags behind of that of letter-identity processing. The results are discussed within the framework of the Lexical Tuning Hypothesis (Castles, Davis, Cavalot, & Forster, 2007), which stresses the importance of feedback between letter (identity and position) coding and (developing) orthographic representations.
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Most Chinese compound characters represent meaning explicitly and systematically via the semantic radical. Previous research has shown that readers can use the semantic radical to infer the meaning of unknown compound characters (i.e.,... more
Most Chinese compound characters represent meaning explicitly and systematically via the semantic radical. Previous research has shown that readers can use the semantic radical to infer the meaning of unknown compound characters (i.e., semantic decoding). Yet it is unclear whether it influences reading in natural texts or facilitates orthographic learning. Across two eye-tracking experiments, we exposed adult native speakers (n= 25 and n=16) to sixteen pseudocharacters embedded in sentences. Half of the pseudocharacters contained semantic radicals related to the meaning conferred by the sentential context (i.e., transparent); the other half were unrelated (i.e., opaque). After reading, participants completed written cloze, orthographic decision and definition production tasks. In both experiments, eye-tracking results showed a reduction in fixation times and regressions over the five exposures for the pseudocharacters. The post-test outcomes provided evidence for orthographic and se...
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Surface dyslexia is characterised by poor reading of irregular words while nonword reading can be completely normal. Previous work has identified several theoretical possibilities for the underlying locus of impairment in surface... more
Surface dyslexia is characterised by poor reading of irregular words while nonword reading can be completely normal. Previous work has identified several theoretical possibilities for the underlying locus of impairment in surface dyslexia. In this study, we systematically investigated whether children with surface dyslexia showed different patterns of reading performance that could be traced back to different underlying levels of impairment. To do this, we tested 12 English readers, replicating previous work in Hebrew (Gvion & Friedmann, 2013; 2016; Friedmann & Lukov, 2008; Friedmann & Gvion, 2016). In our sample, we found that poor irregular word reading was associated with deficits at the level of the orthographic input lexicon and with impaired access to meaning and spoken word forms after processing written words in the orthographic input lexicon. There were also children whose surface dyslexia seemed to be caused by impairments of the phonological output lexicon. We suggest tha...
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ABSTRACTTheories of reading development generally agree that, in addition to phonological decoding, some kind of orthographic processing skill underlies the ability to learn to read words. However, there is a lack of clarity as to which... more
ABSTRACTTheories of reading development generally agree that, in addition to phonological decoding, some kind of orthographic processing skill underlies the ability to learn to read words. However, there is a lack of clarity as to which aspect(s) of orthographic processing are key in reading development. We test here whether this is orthographic knowledge and/or orthographic learning. Whereas orthographic knowledge has been argued to reflect a child’s existing store of orthographic representations, orthographic learning is concerned with the ability to form these representations. In a longitudinal study of second- and third-grade students, we evaluate the relations between these two aspects of orthographic processing and word-reading outcomes. The results of our analyses show that variance captured by orthographic knowledge overlaps with that of word reading, to the point that they form a single latent word-reading factor. In contrast, orthographic learning is distinctive from this ...
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The self-teaching hypothesis describes how children progress toward skilled sight-word reading. It proposes that children do this via phonological recoding with assistance from contextual cues, to identify the target pronunciation for a... more
The self-teaching hypothesis describes how children progress toward skilled sight-word reading. It proposes that children do this via phonological recoding with assistance from contextual cues, to identify the target pronunciation for a novel letter string, and in so doing create an opportunity to self-teach new orthographic knowledge. We present a new computational implementation of self-teaching within the dual-route cascaded (DRC) model of reading aloud, and we explore how decoding and contextual cues can work together to enable accurate self-teaching under a variety of circumstances. The new model (ST-DRC) uses DRC's sublexical route and the interactivity between the lexical and sublexical routes to simulate phonological recoding. Known spoken words are activated in response to novel printed words, triggering an opportunity for orthographic learning, which is the basis for skilled sight-word reading. ST-DRC also includes new computational mechanisms for simulating how contex...
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A substantial proportion of children struggle to learn to read. This not only impairs their academic achievement, but increases their risk of social, emotional, and mental health problems. In order to help these children, reading... more
A substantial proportion of children struggle to learn to read. This not only impairs their academic achievement, but increases their risk of social, emotional, and mental health problems. In order to help these children, reading scientists have worked hard for over a century to better understand the nature of reading difficulties and the people who have them. The aim of this perspective is to outline some of the things that we have learned so far, and to provide a framework for considering the causes of reading difficulties and the most effective ways to treat them.
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There is evidence that poor readers are at increased risk for various types of low self-concept-particularly academic self-concept. However, this evidence ignores the heterogeneous nature of poor readers, and hence the likelihood that not... more
There is evidence that poor readers are at increased risk for various types of low self-concept-particularly academic self-concept. However, this evidence ignores the heterogeneous nature of poor readers, and hence the likelihood that not all poor readers have low self-concept. The aim of this study was to better understand which types of poor readers have low self-concept. We tested 77 children with poor reading for their age for four types of self-concept, four types of reading, three types of spoken language, and two types of attention. We found that poor readers with poor attention had low academic self-concept, while poor readers with poor spoken language had low general self-concept in addition to low academic self-concept. In contrast, poor readers with typical spoken language and attention did not have low self-concept of any type. We also discovered that academic self-concept was reliably associated with reading and receptive spoken vocabulary, and that general self-concept...
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Masked transposed-letter (TL) priming effects have been used to index letter position processing over the course of reading development. Whereas some studies have reported an increase in TL priming over development, others have reported a... more
Masked transposed-letter (TL) priming effects have been used to index letter position processing over the course of reading development. Whereas some studies have reported an increase in TL priming over development, others have reported a decrease. These findings have led to the development of 2 somewhat contradictory accounts of letter position development: the lexical tuning hypothesis and the multiple-route model. One factor that may be contributing to these discrepancies is the use of baseline primes that substitute letters in the target word, which may confound the effect of changes in letter position processing over development with those of letter identity. The present study included an identity prime (e.g., listen-LISTEN), in addition to the standard two-substituted-letter (2SL; e.g., lidfen-LISTEN) and all-letter-different (ALD; e.g., rodfup-LISTEN) baselines, to remove the potential confound between letter position and letter identity information in determining the effect ...
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Orthographic depth has been studied intensively as one of the sources of cross-linguistic differences in reading, and yet there has been little detailed analysis of what is meant by orthographic depth. Here we propose that orthographic... more
Orthographic depth has been studied intensively as one of the sources of cross-linguistic differences in reading, and yet there has been little detailed analysis of what is meant by orthographic depth. Here we propose that orthographic depth is a conglomerate of two separate constructs: the complexity of print-to-speech correspondences and the unpredictability of the derivation of the pronunciations of words on the basis of their orthography. We show that on a linguistic level, these two concepts can be dissociated. Furthermore, we make different predictions about how the two concepts would affect skilled reading and reading acquisition. We argue that refining the definition of orthographic depth opens up new research questions. Addressing these can provide insights into the specific mechanisms by which language-level orthographic properties affect cognitive processes underlying reading.
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The discipline of cognitive neuropsychology has been important for informing theories of cognition and describing the nature of acquired cognitive disorders, but its applicability in a developmental context has been questioned. Here, we... more
The discipline of cognitive neuropsychology has been important for informing theories of cognition and describing the nature of acquired cognitive disorders, but its applicability in a developmental context has been questioned. Here, we revisit this issue, asking whether the cognitive neuropsychological approach can be helpful for exploring the nature and causes of developmental disorders and, if so, how. We outline the key features of the cognitive neuropsychological approach, and then consider how some of the major challenges to this approach from a developmental perspective might be met. In doing so, we distinguish between challenges to the methods of cognitive neuropsychology and those facing its deeper conceptual underpinnings. We conclude that the detailed investigation of patterns of both associations and dissociations, and across both developmental and acquired cases, can assist in describing the cognitive deficits within developmental disorders and in delineating possible c...
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Phonological decoding skill has been proposed to be key to successful sight word learning (orthographic learning). However, little is known about how children with phonological dyslexia, who have impaired phonological decoding, acquire... more
Phonological decoding skill has been proposed to be key to successful sight word learning (orthographic learning). However, little is known about how children with phonological dyslexia, who have impaired phonological decoding, acquire sight words, or why children with surface dyslexia can have normal phonological decoding skill yet impaired sight word acquisition. This study addressed this issue by investigating orthographic learning in two 10-year-old children: S.D., with a reading profile of surface dyslexia, and P.D., with a reading profile of phonological dyslexia. They participated in two experiments exploring the role of phonological decoding and paired-associate learning in orthographic learning. The results showed that, first, P.D.'s orthographic learning ability was better than S.D.'s, despite her phonological decoding skills being poorer. Second, S.D. showed impaired paired-associate learning abilities while P.D. did not. Overall, the results indicate that phonolo...
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Science, Phonetics, Cognitive Neuropsychology, Reading, and 14 moreDyslexia, Medicine, Developmental dyslexia, Developmental Reading, Humans, Child, Reading Development, Female, Male, Orthographic Projection, Neurosciences, Reading Process, Verbal Learning, and paired associate learning
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Many children with reading difficulties display phonological deficits and struggle to acquire non-lexical reading skills. However, not all children with reading difficulties have these problems, such as children with selective letter... more
Many children with reading difficulties display phonological deficits and struggle to acquire non-lexical reading skills. However, not all children with reading difficulties have these problems, such as children with selective letter position dyslexia (LPD), who make excessive migration errors (such as reading slime as "smile"). Previous research has explored three possible loci for the deficit - the phonological output buffer, the orthographic input lexicon, and the orthographic-visual analysis stage of reading. While there is compelling evidence against a phonological output buffer and orthographic input lexicon deficit account of English LPD, the evidence in support of an orthographic-visual analysis deficit is currently limited. In this multiple single-case study with three English-speaking children with developmental LPD, we aimed to both replicate and extend previous findings regarding the locus of impairment in English LPD. First, we ruled out a phonological output ...
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Share's self-teaching hypothesis proposes that orthographic representations are acquired via phonological decoding. A key, yet untested, prediction of this theory is that there should be an effect of word regularity on the number and... more
Share's self-teaching hypothesis proposes that orthographic representations are acquired via phonological decoding. A key, yet untested, prediction of this theory is that there should be an effect of word regularity on the number and quality of word-specific orthographic representations that children acquire. Thirty-four Grade 2 children were exposed to the sound and meaning of eight novel words and were then presented with those words in written form in short stories. Half the words were assigned regular pronunciations and half irregular pronunciations. Lexical decision and spelling tasks conducted 10 days later revealed that the children's orthographic representations of the regular words appeared to be stronger and more extensive than those of the irregular words.
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Science, Phonetics, Semantics, Vocabulary, and 15 moreReading, Linguistics, Face recognition (Psychology), Language, Spelling, Medicine, Orthography, Learning, Humans, Child, Word Recognition, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, Lexical Decision, Orthographic Projection, and Verbal Learning
ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to determine if phonological processing deficits in specific reading disability (SRD) and specific language impairment (SLI) are the same or different. In four separate analyses, a different combination... more
ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to determine if phonological processing deficits in specific reading disability (SRD) and specific language impairment (SLI) are the same or different. In four separate analyses, a different combination of reading and spoken language measures was used to divide 73 children into three subgroups: poor readers with average spoken language (SRD), poor readers with poor spoken language (SRD + SLI) and average readers with poor spoken language (SLI). These groups were compared on five phonological processing measures. The SRD group had deficits in neural representations of phonemes, phoneme discrimination, phoneme awareness and rapid naming. The SRD + SLI group had more severe deficits than the SRD group on half of these measures, as well as phonological short‐term memory. Children with SLI were free from phonological processing deficits. Thus, phonological processing deficits were the same or different in SRD and SLI, depending on how SRD and SLI were defined, and how phonological processing was measured.
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Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, Reading, Temporal Resolution, and 15 morePhonological processing, Dyslexia, Medicine, Humans, Child, Attentional Blink, Female, Inspection Time, Temporal Processing, Male, Reaction Time, Time Factors, Psychological Models, Reading Process, and Case Control Studies
Research Interests: Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, Experimental Psychology, Decision Making, Cognition, and 15 moreEnglish, Australia, Language, Learning, Humans, Child, Female, Male, Child Psychology, Context Effect, Experiments, Analysis of Variance, Child Language, Choice Behavior, and Contextual Information
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, Attention, Dyslexia, and 15 moreFluency, Medicine, Developmental dyslexia, Humans, Child, Attentional Blink, Female, Male, Cortex, Educational Status, Intelligence tests, Neurosciences, Psychomotor Performance, Neuropsychological Tests, and photic stimulation
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Masked priming studies have repeatedly provided evidence for a form-based morpho-orthographic segmentation mechanism that blindly decomposes any word with the mere appearance of morphological complexity (e.g., corn + er). This account has... more
Masked priming studies have repeatedly provided evidence for a form-based morpho-orthographic segmentation mechanism that blindly decomposes any word with the mere appearance of morphological complexity (e.g., corn + er). This account has been called into question by Baayen et al. Psychological Review, 118, 438-482 (2011), who pointed out that the prime words previously tested in the morpho-orthographic condition vary in the extent to which the suffix conveys regular meaning. In the present study, we investigated whether evidence for morpho-orthographic segmentation can be obtained with a set of tightly controlled prime words that are entirely semantically opaque. Using a visual lexical decision task, we compared priming from truly suffixed primes (hunter-HUNT), completely opaque pseudo-suffixed primes (corner-CORN), and non-suffixed primes (cashew-CASH). The results show comparable magnitudes of priming for the truly suffixed and pseudo-suffixed primes, and no priming from non-suff...
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Many children with reading difficulties display phonological deficits and struggle to acquire non-lexical reading skills. However, not all children with reading difficulties have these problems, such as children with selective letter... more
Many children with reading difficulties display phonological deficits and struggle to acquire non-lexical reading skills. However, not all children with reading difficulties have these problems, such as children with selective letter position dyslexia (LPD), who make excessive migration errors (such as reading slime as "smile"). Previous research has explored three possible loci for the deficit - the phonological output buffer, the orthographic input lexicon, and the orthographic-visual analysis stage of reading. While there is compelling evidence against a phonological output buffer and orthographic input lexicon deficit account of English LPD, the evidence in support of an orthographic-visual analysis deficit is currently limited. In this multiple single-case study with three English-speaking children with developmental LPD, we aimed to both replicate and extend previous findings regarding the locus of impairment in English LPD. First, we ruled out a phonological output ...
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Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Science, Decision Making, Semantics, Vocabulary, and 15 moreReading, Language Development, High Frequency, Humans, Child, Female, Masked Priming, Male, Reaction Time, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, Lexical Decision, Awareness, Visual Word Recognition, Age Factors, and Neuropsychological Tests
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The relation between reading ability and performance on an auditory temporal pattern discrimination task was investigated in children who were either good or delayed readers. The stimuli in the primary task consisted of sequences of... more
The relation between reading ability and performance on an auditory temporal pattern discrimination task was investigated in children who were either good or delayed readers. The stimuli in the primary task consisted of sequences of tones, alternating between high and low frequencies. The threshold interstimulus interval (ISI) for discrimination of differences in the temporal properties of the sequences was measured. An ISI threshold was also measured in a control task that was identical to the primary task, except all tones in a control sequence had the same frequency. Delayed readers and good readers were equally able to discriminate the timing of the sequences at short ISIs, for both the primary and control tasks. Furthermore, the ISI thresholds were not correlated with the ability to read either irregular words or nonwords. These results suggest that reading ability is not related to the ability to track large and rapid frequency changes in auditory temporal patterns.