Lexical restructuring stimulates phonological awareness among emerging English-French bilingual children's literacy.

This longitudinal study investigated how lexical restructuring can stimulate emerging bilingual children's phonological awareness in their first (L1) and second (L2) languages. Sixty-two English (L1) - French (L2) bilingual children (Mage = 75.7 months, SD = 3.2) were taught new English and French word pairs differing minimally in phonological contrast. The results indicated that increasing lexical specificity in English mediated the relationship between English vocabulary and English phonological awareness both concurrently and longitudinally at the end of Grade 1. A longitudinal relationship was established among French vocabulary, French lexical specificity, and French phonological awareness at the end of Grade 1. Notably, cross-language transfer from English lexical specificity was a better predictor of development in French phonological awareness, especially for words that contained phonological contrasts that occurred in both languages. The results from this study highlight the phonological foundations of early literacy and extend the lexical restructuring hypothesis to emerging bilingual children.

Predicting Early Literacy: Auditory and Visual Speech Decoding in Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children.

The current study investigated the relative contributions of auditory speech decoding (i.e., auditory discrimination) and visual speech decoding (i.e., speechreading) on phonological awareness and letter knowledge in deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) kindergartners (Mage = 6;4, n = 27) and hearing kindergartners (Mage = 5;10, n = 42). Hearing children scored higher on auditory discrimination and phonological awareness, with the DHH children scoring at chance level for auditory discrimination, while no differences were found on speechreading and letter knowledge. For DHH children, speechreading correlated with phonological awareness and letter knowledge, for the hearing children, auditory discrimination correlated with phonological awareness. Two regression analyses showed that speechreading predicted phonological awareness and letter knowledge in DHH children only. Speechreading may thus be a compensatory factor in early literacy for DHH children, at least for those who are exposed to spoken language in monolingual or in bilingual or bimodal-bilingual contexts, and could be important to focus on during early literacy instruction.

Online management of text production from pictures: a comparison between fifth graders and undergraduate students.

This study was designed to enhance our understanding of the online management of writing processes by two groups of writers with a different level of expertise, and to explore the impact of this online management on text quality. To this aim, fifth graders (mean age 10.5 years) and undergraduate students (mean age 22.6 years) were asked to compose a narrative from a visual source of images, while their handwriting activity and eye movements were recorded by means of Eye & Pen software and a digitizing tablet. Results showed that fifth graders and undergraduate students used different strategies to engage in high-level source-based text elaboration processes throughout their writing. The main differences concerned the density of source consultation during prewriting, on the one hand, and during pauses, on the other hand. Relationships between these characteristics of online management and text quality were minimal in fifth graders, while in undergraduate students they were more substantial as in the case of syntactic complexity. These findings suggest that with age, the online management of writing becomes more closely related to text quality. In line with a capacity view of writing, it is also concluded that the online management of writing processes of fifth graders is highly constrained by a lack of fluent text production skills which ultimately affects their text quality.

Enhanced semantic involvement during word recognition in children with dyslexia.

We investigated whether children with dyslexia show enhanced semantic involvement as compensation for deficient phonological processing during reading. Phonological and semantic processing during reading and moderating effects of word frequency and word length in children with and without dyslexia were examined using a picture-word priming paradigm. Participants were 61 children with dyslexia and 50 typical readers in Grade 6 of primary school. Primes were either semantically or phonologically (shared onset and rime) related or unrelated to their target word. Results showed that priming effects were stronger in children with dyslexia than in typical readers in the semantic condition but did not differ between groups in the phonological condition. Overall, word length and word frequency effects were stronger for children with dyslexia than for typical readers, but word length and word frequency did not affect priming effects differently for the two groups. In both groups, only semantic priming effects were stronger for low-frequency longer words. Finally, individual word and pseudoword reading efficiency correlated with priming effects only in the semantic condition and only in children with dyslexia. It can be concluded that children with dyslexia, compared with typical readers, rely more on semantic information in word reading but do not show deficient phonological activation during reading compared with typical readers.

Predicting responsiveness to a sustained reading and spelling intervention in children with dyslexia.

The present study aimed to predict responsiveness to a sustained two-phase reading and spelling intervention with a focus on declarative and procedural learning respectively in 122 second-grade Dutch children with dyslexia. We related their responsiveness to intervention to precursor measures (phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming ability, letter knowledge, and verbal working memory) and related word and pseudoword reading and spelling outcomes of the sustained intervention to initial reading and spelling abilities, and first-phase, initial treatment success. Results showed that children with dyslexia improved in reading accuracy and efficiency and in spelling skills during the two phases of the intervention although the gap with typical readers increased. In reading efficiency, rapid automatized naming, and in reading and spelling accuracy phoneme deletion predicted children's responsiveness to intervention. Additionally, children's initial reading abilities at the start of the intervention directly (and indirectly, via initial treatment success, in reading efficiency) predicted posttest outcomes. Responsiveness to intervention in spelling was predicted by phoneme deletion, and spelling at posttest was indirectly, via initial treatment success, predicted by children's initial spelling abilities. Finally, children's initial treatment success directly predicted reading efficiency and spelling outcomes at posttest.

Success in learning similar-sounding words predicts vocabulary depth above and beyond vocabulary breadth.

In lexical development, the specificity of phonological representations is important. The ability to build phonologically specific lexical representations predicts the number of words a child knows (vocabulary breadth), but it is not clear if it also fosters how well words are known (vocabulary depth). Sixty-six children were studied in kindergarten (age 5;7) and first grade (age 6;8). The predictive value of the ability to learn phonologically similar new words, phoneme discrimination ability, and phonological awareness on vocabulary breadth and depth were assessed using hierarchical regression. Word learning explained unique variance in kindergarten and first-grade vocabulary depth, over the other phonological factors. It did not explain unique variance in vocabulary breadth. Furthermore, even after controlling for kindergarten vocabulary breadth, kindergarten word learning still explained unique variance in first-grade vocabulary depth. Skill in learning phonologically similar words appears to predict knowledge children have about what words mean.

Role of linguistic skills in fifth-grade mathematics.

The current study investigated the direct and indirect relations between basic linguistic skills (i.e., phonological skills and grammatical ability) and advanced linguistic skills (i.e., academic vocabulary and verbal reasoning), on the one hand, and fifth-grade mathematics (i.e., arithmetic, geometry, and fractions), on the other, taking working memory and general intelligence into account and controlling for socioeconomic status, age, and gender. The results showed the basic linguistic representations of 167 fifth graders to be indirectly related to their geometric and fraction skills via arithmetic. Furthermore, advanced linguistic skills were found to be directly related to geometry and fractions after controlling for arithmetic. It can be concluded that linguistic skills directly and indirectly relate to mathematical ability in the upper grades of primary education, which highlights the importance of paying attention to such skills in the school curriculum.

The modality and redundancy effects in multimedia learning in children with dyslexia.

The present study aimed to examine the modality and redundancy effects in multimedia learning in children with dyslexia in order to find out whether their learning benefits from written and/or spoken text with pictures. We compared study time and knowledge gain in 26 11-year-old children with dyslexia and 38 typically reading peers in a within-subjects design. All children were presented with a series of user-paced multimedia lessons in 3 conditions: pictorial information presented with (a) written text, (b) audio, or (c) combined text and audio. We also examined whether children's learning outcomes were related to their working memory. With respect to study time, we found modality and reversed redundancy effects. Children with dyslexia spent more time learning in the text condition, compared with the audio condition and the combined text-and-audio condition. Regarding knowledge gain, no modality or redundancy effects were evidenced. Although the groups differed on working memory, it did not influence the modality or redundancy effect on study time or knowledge gain. In multimedia learning, it thus is more efficient to provide children with dyslexia with audio or with auditory support.

How phonological awareness mediates the relation between working memory and word reading efficiency in children with dyslexia.

This study examined the relation between working memory, phonological awareness, and word reading efficiency in fourth-grade children with dyslexia. To test whether the relation between phonological awareness and word reading efficiency differed for children with dyslexia versus typically developing children, we assessed phonological awareness and word reading efficiency in 50 children with dyslexia (aged 9;10, 35 boys) and 613 typically developing children (aged 9;5, 279 boys). Phonological awareness was found to be associated with word reading efficiency, similar for children with dyslexia and typically developing children. To find out whether the relation between working memory and word reading efficiency in the group with dyslexia could be explained by phonological awareness, the children with dyslexia were also tested on working memory. Results of a mediation analysis showed a significant indirect effect of working memory on word reading efficiency via phonological awareness. Working memory predicted reading efficiency, via its relation with phonological awareness in children with dyslexia. This indicates that working memory is necessary for word reading efficiency via its impact on phonological awareness and that phonological awareness continues to be important for word reading efficiency in older children with dyslexia.

Word Decoding Development during Phonics Instruction in Children at Risk for Dyslexia.

In the present study, we examined the early word decoding development of 73 children at genetic risk of dyslexia and 73 matched controls. We conducted monthly curriculum-embedded word decoding measures during the first 5 months of phonics-based reading instruction followed by standardized word decoding measures halfway and by the end of first grade. In kindergarten, vocabulary, phonological awareness, lexical retrieval, and verbal and visual short-term memory were assessed. The results showed that the children at risk were less skilled in phonemic awareness in kindergarten. During the first 5 months of reading instruction, children at risk were less efficient in word decoding and the discrepancy increased over the months. In subsequent months, the discrepancy prevailed for simple words but increased for more complex words. Phonemic awareness and lexical retrieval predicted the reading development in children at risk and controls to the same extent. It is concluded that children at risk are behind their typical peers in word decoding development starting from the very beginning. Furthermore, it is concluded that the disadvantage increased during phonics instruction and that the same predictors underlie the development of word decoding in the two groups of children. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Response to Intervention as a Predictor of Long-Term Reading Outcomes in Children with Dyslexia.

The goal of this study was to investigate how growth during a phonics-based intervention, as well as reading levels at baseline testing, predicted long-term reading outcomes of children with dyslexia. Eighty Dutch children with dyslexia who had completed a 50-week phonics-based intervention in grade 4 were tested in grade 5 on both word and pseudoword (following regular Dutch orthographic patterns) reading efficiency and compared to 93 typical readers. In grade 5 the children with dyslexia were still significantly slower in word and pseudoword reading than their typically developing peers. Results showed that long-term pseudoword reading in the group with dyslexia was predicted by pseudoword reading at pretest and growth in pseudoword reading during the intervention, which was itself predicted by pseudoword reading at pretest. This was not the case for word reading. We found that long-term word reading was directly predicted from pretest word reading, and indirectly via pretest pseudoword reading, via growth in pseudoword and word reading. It can be concluded that pseudoword reading is not only a good indicator of severity of reading difficulties in children with dyslexia, it is also an indicator of who will profit from intervention in the long-term. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Children's use of evaluative devices in spoken and written narratives.

This study investigated the development of evaluation in narratives from middle to late childhood, within the context of differentiating between spoken and written modalities. Two parallel forms of a picture story were used to elicit spoken and written narratives from fourth- and sixth-graders. It was expected that, in addition to an increase of evaluative devices with age, written narratives would exhibit a higher frequency and diversity as a result of the intrinsic differences between the two modalities. From a developmental perspective, the results showed that only few categories exhibited the expected increase with age. Qualitative analyses provided a fruitful method to illustrate developmental changes. The results further indicated that modality had the expected impact on the diversity, and on the frequency, of most categories of evaluative language. Specifically, markers of decontextualized language and categories with a high degree of syntactic complexity were prone to modality differences.

Core vocabulary of young children with Down syndrome.

The aim of this study was to develop a core vocabulary list for young children with intellectual disabilities between 2 and 7 years of age because data from this population are lacking in core vocabulary literature. Children with Down syndrome are considered one of the most valid reference groups for researching developmental patterns in children with intellectual disabilities; therefore, spontaneous language samples of 30 Dutch children with Down syndrome were collected during three different activities with multiple communication partners (free play with parents, lunch- or snack-time at home or at school, and speech therapy sessions). Of these children, 19 used multimodal communication, primarily manual signs and speech. Functional word use in both modalities was transcribed. The 50 most frequently used core words accounted for 67.2% of total word use; 16 words comprised core vocabulary, based on commonality. These data are consistent with similar studies related to the core vocabularies of preschoolers and toddlers with typical development, although the number of nouns present on the core vocabulary list was higher for the children in the present study. This finding can be explained by manual sign use of the children with Down syndrome and is reflective of their expressive vocabulary ages.

Responsiveness to Intervention in Children with Dyslexia.

We examined the responsiveness to a 12-week phonics intervention in 54 s-grade Dutch children with dyslexia, and compared their reading and spelling gains to a control group of 61 typical readers. The intervention aimed to train grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs), and word reading and spelling by using phonics instruction. We examined the accuracy and efficiency of grapheme-phoneme correspondences, decoding words and pseudowords, as well as the accuracy of spelling words before and after the intervention. Moreover, responsiveness to intervention was examined by studying to what extent scores at posttest could directly or indirectly be predicted from precursor measures. Results showed that the children with dyslexia were significantly behind in all reading and spelling measures at pretest. During the intervention, the children with dyslexia made more progress on GPC, (pseudo)word decoding accuracy and efficiency, and spelling accuracy than the typical reading group. Furthermore, we found a direct effect of the precursor measures rapid automatized naming, verbal working memory and phoneme deletion on the dyslexic children's progress in GPC speed, and indirect effects of rapid automatized naming and phoneme deletion on word and pseudoword efficiency and word decoding accuracy via the scores at pretest. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Bidirectional Relations between Text Reading Prosody and Reading Comprehension in the Upper Primary School Grades: A Longitudinal Perspective.

The purpose of this study was to examine the directionality of the relationship between text reading prosody and reading comprehension in the upper grades of primary school. We compared three theoretical possibilities: Two unidirectional relations from text reading prosody to reading comprehension and from reading comprehension to text reading prosody and a bidirectional relation between text reading prosody and reading comprehension. Further, we controlled for autoregressive effects and included decoding efficiency as a measure of general reading skill. Participants were 99 Dutch children, followed longitudinally, from fourth- to sixth-grade. Structural equation modeling showed that the bidirectional relation provided the best fitting model. In fifth-grade, text reading prosody was related to prior decoding and reading comprehension, whereas in sixth-grade, reading comprehension was related to prior text reading prosody. As such, the results suggest that the relation between text reading prosody and reading comprehension is reciprocal, but dependent on grade level.

Narrative competence in children with pragmatic language impairment: a longitudinal study.

BACKGROUND: Children with pragmatic language impairment (PLI) show impairments in the use of language in social contexts. Although the issue has been gaining attention in recent literature, not much is known about the developmental trajectories of children who experience pragmatic language problems. Since narrative competence is an important predictor of both academic and social success, evaluating narrative competence in children with PLI is deemed important. AIMS: To examine the development of narrative competence of children with PLI compared with typically developing (TD) children using a prognostic longitudinal design. METHODS & PROCEDURES: Using the Dutch adaptation of the Renfrew Bus Story Test, narrative competence was assessed at ages 5-7 for a group of 84 children with PLI and a group of 81 TD children. Groups were compared on measures of narrative productivity, organization of story content and cohesion. OUTCOMES & RESULTS: Results showed an increase in narrative competence for both groups across most time points. The PLI group obtained lower scores on measures of narrative productivity and story content organization compared with their TD peers at all time points, but did not show more problems related to narrative cohesion. Most problems in the domain of narrative productivity and story content organization were shown to be independent of lower non-verbal intelligence. The developmental trajectory for the PLI group was largely similar to that of their TD peers, and showed a persistent developmental delay of approximately one year. Furthermore, qualitative differences were visible in the proportion of irrelevant T-units, which was consistently higher in the PLI group. The different narrative measures were found to be relatively stable over time. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: The results of this study suggest that narrative difficulties of children identified as pragmatically impaired persist at least until middle childhood. The persistence of the measured developmental delay, combined with the finding of qualitative differences, support the view of PLI as a deficit, which is consistent with the addition of social communication disorder (SCD) to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5).

Linguistic profiles of children with CI as compared with children with hearing or specific language impairment.

BACKGROUND: The spoken language difficulties of children with moderate or severe to profound hearing loss are mainly related to limited auditory speech perception. However, degraded or filtered auditory input as evidenced in children with cochlear implants (CIs) may result in less efficient or slower language processing as well. To provide insight into the underlying nature of the spoken language difficulties in children with CIs, linguistic profiles of children with CIs are compared with those of hard-of-hearing (HoH) children with conventional hearing aids and children with specific language impairment (SLI). AIMS: To examine differences in linguistic abilities and profiles of children with CIs as compared with HoH children and children with SLI, and whether the spoken language difficulties of children with CIs mainly lie in limited auditory perception or in language processing problems. METHODS & PROCEDURE: Differences in linguistic abilities and differential linguistic profiles of 47 children with CI, 66 HoH children with moderate to severe hearing loss, and 127 children with SLI are compared, divided into two age cohorts. Standardized Dutch tests were administered. Factor analyses and cluster analyses were conducted to find homogeneous linguistic profiles of the children. OUTCOMES & RESULTS: The children with CIs were outperformed by their HoH peers and peers with SLI on most linguistic abilities. Concerning the linguistic profiles, the largest group of children with CIs and HoH children shared similar profiles. The profiles observed for most of the children with SLI were different from those of their peers with hearing loss in both age cohorts. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: Results suggest that the underlying nature of spoken language problems in most children with CIs manifests in limited auditory perception instead of language processing difficulties. However, there appears to be a subgroup of children with CIs whose linguistic profiles resemble those of children with SLI.

The Contribution of Segmental and Suprasegmental Phonology to Reading Comprehension.

The aim of the present study was to examine the relation between decoding and segmental and suprasegmental phonology, and their contribution to reading comprehension, in the upper primary grades. Following a longitudinal design, the performance of 99 Dutch primary school children on phonological awareness (segmental phonology) and text reading prosody (suprasegmental phonology) in fourth-grade and fifth-grade, and reading comprehension in sixth-grade were examined. In addition, decoding efficiency as a general assessment of reading was examined. Structural path modeling firstly showed that the relation between decoding efficiency and both measures of phonology from fourth- to fifth grade was unidirectional. Secondly, the relation between decoding in fourth- and fifth-grade and reading comprehension in sixth-grade became indirect when segmental and suprasegmental phonology were added to the model. Both factors independently exerted influence on later reading comprehension. This leads to the conclusion that not only segmental, but also suprasegmental phonology, contributes substantially to children's reading development.

'MetaTaal': enhancing complex syntax in children with specific language impairment--a metalinguistic and multimodal approach.

BACKGROUND: Currently, most research on the effective treatment of morphosyntax in children with specific language impairment (SLI) pertains to younger children. In the last two decades, several studies have provided evidence that intervention for older school-age children with SLI can be effective. These metalinguistic intervention approaches teach grammatical rules explicitly and use shapes and colours as two-dimensional visual support. Reading or writing activities form a substantial part of these interventions. However, some children with SLI are poor readers and might benefit more from an approach that is less dependent on literacy skills. AIMS: To examine the effectiveness of a combined metalinguistic and multimodal approach in older school-age children with SLI. The intervention was adapted to suit poor readers and targeted the improvement of relative clause production, because relative clauses still pose difficulties for older children with SLI. METHODS & PROCEDURES: Participants were 12 monolingual Dutch children with SLI (mean age 11;2). All children visited a special school for children with speech and language disorders in the Netherlands. A quasi-experimental multiple-baseline design was chosen to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention. A set of tasks was constructed to test relative clause production and comprehension. Two balanced versions were alternated in order to suppress a possible learning effect from multiple presentations of the tasks. After 3 monthly baseline measurements, the children received individual treatment with a protocolled intervention programme twice a week during 5 weeks. The tests were repeated directly post-therapy and at a retention measurement 3 months later. During the intervention programme, the speech therapist delivering the treatment remained blind to the test results. OUTCOMES & RESULTS: No significant changes were found during the baseline measurements. However, measurement directly post-therapy showed that 5 h of intervention produced significant improvement on the relative clause production tasks, but not on the relative clause comprehension task. The gains were also maintained 3 months later. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: The motor and tactile/kinesthetic dimensions of the 'MetaTaal' metalinguistic intervention approach are a valuable addition to the existing metalinguistic approaches. This study supports the evidence that grammatical skills in older school-age children with SLI can be remediated with direct intervention using a metalinguistic approach. The current tendency to diminish direct intervention for older children with SLI should be reconsidered.

Do testing effects change over time? Insights from immediate and delayed retrieval speed.

Retrieving information from memory improves recall accuracy more than continued studying, but this testing effect often only becomes visible over time. In contrast, the present study documents testing effects on recall speed both immediately after practice and after a delay. A total of 40 participants learned the translation of 100 Swahili words and then further restudied the words with translations or retrieved the translations from memory during testing. As in previous experiments, recall accuracy was higher for restudied words than for tested words immediately after practice, but higher for tested words after 7 days. Response times for correct answers, however, showed a different result: Learners were faster to recall tested words than restudied words both immediately after practice and after 7 days. These results are interpreted in light of recent suggestions that testing selectively strengthens cue-response associations. An additional outcome was that testing effects on recall accuracy were related to perceived retrieval success during practice. When several practice retrievals were successful, testing effects on recall accuracy were already significant immediately after practice. Together with the reaction time data, this supports recent models that attribute changes in testing effects over time to limited item retrievability during practice.