Calibration of Self-Reports of Anxiety and Physiological Measures of Anxiety While Reading in Adults With and Without Reading Disability.

Reading difficulty has been linked to anxiety in adults yet and has not been systematically studied especially in compensated adults with dyslexia. This study examined the relationships between anxiety ratings and physiological arousal while reading among adults with reading disability (RD) compared to skilled readers (SR). Nineteen compensated adults with RD and 20 SR adults were administered a battery of reading tasks and anxiety self-report questionnaires. Physiological measures of arousal were recorded during text reading task. Adults with RD scored significantly lower than SR on all cognitive and reading related measures. They showed no differences on any of the self-report anxiety measures. Interestingly, in the skilled readers' sample, physiological arousal while reading correlated with trait anxiety. No correlations between physiological and self-reported data were found in the RD sample. These findings suggest a model of resiliency in compensated adults with reading disabilities that includes lower anxiety levels and a discord between anxiety reports and actual arousal rates. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Fast and slow readers of the Hebrew language show divergence in brain response ∼200 ms post stimulus: an ERP study.

Higher N170 amplitudes to words and to faces were recently reported for faster readers of German. Since the shallow German orthography allows phonological recoding of single letters, the reported speed advantages might have their origin in especially well-developed visual processing skills of faster readers. In contrast to German, adult readers of Hebrew are forced to process letter chunks up to whole words. This dependence on more complex visual processing might have created ceiling effects for this skill. Therefore, the current study examined whether also in the deep Hebrew orthography visual processing skills as reflected by N170 amplitudes explain reading speed differences. Forty university students, native speakers of Hebrew without reading impairments, accomplished a lexical decision task (i.e., deciding whether a visually presented stimulus represents a real or a pseudo word) and a face decision task (i.e., deciding whether a face was presented complete or with missing facial features) while their electroencephalogram was recorded from 64 scalp positions. In both tasks stronger event related potentials (ERPs) were observed for faster readers in time windows at about 200 ms. Unlike in previous studies, ERP waveforms in relevant time windows did not correspond to N170 scalp topographies. The results support the notion of visual processing ability as an orthography independent marker of reading proficiency, which advances our understanding about regular and impaired reading development.

Reading improvement in English- and Hebrew-speaking children with reading difficulties after reading acceleration training.

A reading acceleration program known to improve reading fluency in Hebrew-speaking adults was tested for its effect on children. Eighty-nine Hebrew- and English-speaking children with reading difficulties were divided into a waiting list group and two training groups (Hebrew and English) and underwent 4 weeks of reading acceleration training. Results of pre- and post-testing of reading abilities point to a significant main effect of the test, demonstrating improvements in silent contextual reading speed, reading comprehension, and speed of processing in both Hebrew and English training groups as compared to their performance before the intervention. This study indicates that the Reading Acceleration Program might be an effective program for improving reading abilities in children, independent of language.

Computerized Silent Reading Rate and Strategy Instruction for Fourth Graders at Risk in Silent Reading Rate.

Fourth graders whose silent word reading and/or sentence reading rate was, on average, two-thirds standard deviation below their oral reading of real and pseudowords and reading comprehension accuracy were randomly assigned to treatment (n=7) or wait-listed (n=7) control groups. Following nine sessions combining computerized rapid accelerated-reading program (RAP), which individually tailors rate of written text presentation to comprehension criterion (80%), and self-regulated strategies for attending and engaging, the treated group significantly outperformed the wait-listed group before treatment on (a) a grade-normed, silent sentence reading rate task requiring lexical- and syntactic level processing to decide which of three sentences makes sense; and (b) RAP presentation rates yoked to comprehension accuracy level. Each group improved significantly on these same outcomes from before to after instruction. Attention ratings and working memory for written words predicted post-treatment accuracy, which correlated significantly with the silent sentence reading rate score. Implications are discussed for (a) preventing silent reading disabilities during the transition to increasing emphasis on silent reading, (b) evidence-based approaches for making accommodation of extra time on timed tests requiring silent reading, and

Reading scripts that differ in orthographic transparency: a within-participant-and-language investigation of underlying skills.

Spelling-sound transparency varies across orthographies. This aspect was found to have implications for the strategy of reading, but whether reading of different orthographies also relies differently on cognitive skills is yet unclear. This question was examined mainly by cross-participant-and-language investigations in which orthographic variation is hard to isolate. This work examined this topic using a within-participant-and-language study design. Hebrew readers in Grades 3 and 4 were longitudinally tested because in these grades they are engaged in reading three forms of script, transcribing the same language and varying in spelling-sound relations, as they gradually progress from reading a transparent orthography to reading an opaque one. Phonological awareness explained a considerable amount of variance in accuracy in reading all forms of script across these two years. The relations of morphological awareness with accuracy in reading the three forms of script were similar; however, the results suggested that these may be associated with the course of transition. Phonological awareness and rapid naming were similarly related to fluency in reading all forms of script when equivalent proficiencies in reading of these scripts were achieved. At this stage, the relations of vocabulary with fluency in reading and comprehension of the transparent and opaque forms of script were also much alike. Phonological memory explained a modest, but significant, amount of variance in comprehension of the unpointed script alone. These results suggest that, apart from phonological memory, the cognitive skills tested in this study serve as a common cognitive infrastructure in reading orthographies varying in spelling-sound transparency.

Reading proficiency and adaptability in orthographic processing: an examination of the effect of type of orthography read on brain activity in regular and dyslexic readers.

Regular readers were found to adjust the routine of reading to the demands of processing imposed by different orthographies. Dyslexic readers may lack such adaptability in reading. This hypothesis was tested among readers of Hebrew, as Hebrew has two forms of script differing in phonological transparency. Event-related potentials were recorded from 24 regular and 24 dyslexic readers while they carried out a lexical decision task in these two forms of script. The two forms of script elicited distinct amplitudes and latencies at ∼165 ms after target onset, and these effects were larger in regular than in dyslexic readers. These early effects appeared not to be merely a result of the visual difference between the two forms of script (the presence of diacritics). The next effect of form of script was obtained on amplitudes elicited at latencies associated with orthographic-lexical processing and the categorization of stimuli, and these appeared earlier in regular readers (∼340 ms) than in dyslexic readers (∼400 ms). The behavioral measures showed inferior reading skills of dyslexic readers compared to regular readers in reading of both forms of script. Taken together, the results suggest that although dyslexic readers are not indifferent to the type of orthography read, they fail to adjust the routine of reading to the demands of processing imposed by both a transparent and an opaque orthography.

Effects of working memory and reading acceleration training on improving working memory abilities and reading skills among third graders.

Working memory (WM) plays a crucial role in supporting learning, including reading. This study investigated the influence of reading acceleration and WM training programs on improving reading skills and WM abilities. Ninety-seven children in third grade were divided into three study groups and one control group. The three study groups each received a different combination of two training programs: only reading acceleration, WM followed by reading acceleration, and reading acceleration followed by WM. All training programs significantly improved reading skills and WM abilities. Compared with the control group, the group trained with only the reading acceleration program improved word accuracy, whereas the groups trained with a combination of reading and WM programs improved word and pseudo-word fluency. The reading-acceleration-alone group and the WM-program-followed-by-reading-acceleration group improved phonological complex memory. We conclude that a training program that combines a long reading acceleration program and a short WM program is the most effective for improving the abilities most related to scholastic achievement.

Can reading rate acceleration improve error monitoring and cognitive abilities underlying reading in adolescents with reading difficulties and in typical readers?

Dyslexia is characterized by slow, inaccurate reading and by deficits in executive functions. The deficit in reading is exemplified by impaired error monitoring, which can be specifically shown through neuroimaging, in changes in Error-/Correct-related negativities (ERN/CRN). The current study aimed to investigate whether a reading intervention program (Reading Acceleration Program, or RAP) could improve overall reading, as well as error monitoring and other cognitive abilities underlying reading, in adolescents with reading difficulties. Participants with reading difficulties and typical readers were trained with the RAP for 8 weeks. Their reading and error monitoring were characterized both behaviorally and electrophysiologically through a lexical decision task. Behaviorally, the reading training improved "contextual reading speed" and decreased reading errors in both groups. Improvements were also seen in speed of processing, memory and visual screening. Electrophysiologically, ERN increased in both groups following training, but the increase was significantly greater in the participants with reading difficulties. Furthermore, an association between the improvement in reading speed and the change in difference between ERN and CRN amplitudes following training was seen in participants with reading difficulties. These results indicate that improving deficits in error monitoring and speed of processing are possible underlying mechanisms of the RAP intervention. We suggest that ERN is a good candidate for use as a measurement in evaluating the effect of reading training in typical and disabled readers.

Enhanced reading by training with imposed time constraint in typical and dyslexic adults.

Poor reading skills of developmental dyslexics persist into adulthood with standard remediation protocols having little effect. Nevertheless, reading improves if readers are induced to read faster. Here we show that this improvement can be enhanced by training. Training follows a multi-session procedure adapted to silent sentence reading, with individually set, increasingly more demanding, time constraints (letter-by-letter masking). In both typical and dyslexic adult readers, reading times are shortened and comprehension improves. After training, the dyslexic readers' performance is similar to that of typical readers; moreover, their connected text reading times and comprehension scores significantly improve in standard reading tests and are retained at 6 months post training. Identical training without time constraints proves ineffective. Our results suggest that fluent reading depends in part on rapid information processing, which then might affect perception, cognitive processing and possibly eye movements. These processes remain malleable in adulthood, even in individuals with developmental dyslexia.

Compensated dyslexics have a more efficient error detection system than noncompensated dyslexics.

Error/correct-related negativities, response-locked components of the evoked response potential, and N100, a stimulus-locked component, were used to compare error detection monitoring in skilled readers and in compensated and noncompensated dyslexic adolescent readers during a lexical decision task. Results showed a general increase in N100 amplitudes prior to error commission in all groups; a significant decrease in error/correct-related negativity amplitudes in the noncompensated dyslexics compared with the other 2 groups; and smaller error-related negativity correlated with a higher number of decoding errors, lower working memory scores, and lower speed of processing in the neuropsychological battery. Based on the hypothesis in previous studies that the error detection mechanism is a subcomponent of executive functions, the possibility that poor executive ability underlies poor reading skills in the noncompensated dyslexic readers is discussed. These findings can be used as a platform for executive-based diagnosis and training for individuals with reading disabilities.

The development of working memory from kindergarten to first grade in children with different decoding skills.

This study investigated the development of working memory ability (measured by tasks assessing all four working memory components) from the end of kindergarten to the end of first grade-the first year reading is taught in school-and the relationship between working memory abilities in kindergarten and first grade and reading skills in first grade. A sample of 97 children who participated in Nevo and Breznitz's earlier study [Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 109 (2011) 73-90] were divided into two groups according to their decoding skills, resulting in 24 poor decoders and 73 typical decoders. The entire cohort improved significantly on all of the working memory measures from kindergarten to first grade, with the phonological complex memory at both time points showing the highest correlations with reading skills at first grade. However, there were differences found between the two decoding groups, with poor decoders exhibiting lower working memory abilities in most working memory measures, performing significantly lower on tests of all three reading skills (decoding, reading comprehension, and reading speed), and showing higher correlation coefficients between reading skills. Findings suggest that even before formal teaching of reading begins, it is important to reinforce working memory abilities in order to maximize future reading achievements.

Neuronal response specificity as a marker of reading proficiency: two-fold nature of the N170 revealed after massive repetition.

Reading demands precise and efficient letter and word processing. This event-related potentials (ERP) study utilized massive repetition of visually presented single letters to trigger neuronal adaptation. Our aim was to explore whether the adaptation pattern of the N170 ERP component, serving as an indicator of neuronal response specificity, would differ for two reader groups. Forty German students, divided at the median into slow and fast readers, accomplished a visual oddball paradigm. ERPs of standard stimuli were computed separately for the first, second, and third part of the experiment. ERP waveforms and independent component analyses showed two subcomponents within the N170 time window. For both reader groups, the ERP amplitudes decreased over the time course of the experiment; however, only faster readers showed a subcomponent-specific adaptation response, restricted to the earlier N170 part. Results may reflect different degrees of neuronal response specificity in slow and fast readers, which might serve as a promising indicator for interindividual differences in visual recognition tasks such as reading.

Teaching children with dyslexia to spell in a reading-writers' workshop.

To identify effective treatment for both the spelling and word decoding problems in dyslexia, 24 students with dyslexia in grades 4 to 9 were randomly assigned to treatments A (n=12) or B (n=12) in an after-school reading-writers' workshop at the university (thirty 1-h sessions twice a week over 5 months). First, both groups received step 1 treatment of grapheme-phoneme correspondences (gpc) for oral reading. At step 2, treatment A received gpc training for both oral reading and spelling, and treatment B received gpc training for oral reading and phonological awareness. At step 3, treatment A received orthographic spelling strategy and rapid accelerated reading program (RAP) training, and treatment B continued step 2 training. At step 4, treatment A received morphological strategies and RAP training, and treatment B received orthographic spelling strategy training. Each treatment also had the same integrated reading-writing activities, which many school assignments require. Both groups improved significantly in automatic letter writing, spelling real words, compositional fluency, and oral reading (decoding) rate. Treatment A significantly outperformed treatment B in decoding rate after step 3 orthographic training, which in turn uniquely predicted spelling real words. Letter processing rate increased during step 3 RAP training and correlated significantly with two silent reading fluency measures. Adding orthographic strategies with "working memory in mind" to phonics helps students with dyslexia spell and read English words.

Does the reading of different orthographies produce distinct brain activity patterns? An ERP study.

Orthographies vary in the degree of transparency of spelling-sound correspondence. These range from shallow orthographies with transparent grapheme-phoneme relations, to deep orthographies, in which these relations are opaque. Only a few studies have examined whether orthographic depth is reflected in brain activity. In these studies a between-language design was applied, making it difficult to isolate the aspect of orthographic depth. In the present work this question was examined using a within-subject-and-language investigation. The participants were speakers of Hebrew, as they are skilled in reading two forms of script transcribing the same oral language. One form is the shallow pointed script (with diacritics), and the other is the deep unpointed script (without diacritics). Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while skilled readers carried out a lexical decision task in the two forms of script. A visual non-orthographic task controlled for the visual difference between the scripts (resulting from the addition of diacritics to the pointed script only). At an early visual-perceptual stage of processing (~165 ms after target onset), the pointed script evoked larger amplitudes with longer latencies than the unpointed script at occipital-temporal sites. However, these effects were not restricted to orthographic processing, and may therefore have reflected, at least in part, the visual load imposed by the diacritics. Nevertheless, the results implied that distinct orthographic processing may have also contributed to these effects. At later stages (~340 ms after target onset) the unpointed script elicited larger amplitudes than the pointed one with earlier latencies. As this latency has been linked to orthographic-linguistic processing and to the classification of stimuli, it is suggested that these differences are associated with distinct lexical processing of a shallow and a deep orthography.

Time-Resolved and Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Complex Cognitive Processes and their Role in Disorders like Developmental Dyscalculia.

The aim of this article is to report on the importance and challenges of a time-resolved and spatio-temporal analysis of fMRI data from complex cognitive processes and associated disorders using a study on developmental dyscalculia (DD). Participants underwent fMRI while judging the incorrectness of multiplication results, and the data were analyzed using a sequence of methods, each of which progressively provided more a detailed picture of the spatio-temporal aspect of this disease. Healthy subjects and subjects with DD performed alike behaviorally though they exhibited parietal disparities using traditional voxel-based group analyses. Further and more detailed differences, however, surfaced with a time-resolved examination of the neural responses during the experiment. While performing inter-group comparisons, a third group of subjects with dyslexia (DL) but with no arithmetic difficulties was included to test the specificity of the analysis and strengthen the statistical base with overall fifty-eight subjects. Surprisingly, the analysis showed a functional dissimilarity during an initial reading phase for the group of dyslexic but otherwise normal subjects, with respect to controls, even though only numerical digits and no alphabetic characters were presented. Thus our results suggest that time-resolved multi-variate analysis of complex experimental paradigms has the ability to yield powerful new clinical insights about abnormal brain function. Similarly, a detailed compilation of aberrations in the functional cascade may have much greater potential to delineate the core processing problems in mental disorders.

Frontal lobe role in simple arithmetic calculations: an fNIR study.

This study aimed to affirm the use of functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIR) in examining frontal lobe role during automatic (i.e., requires retrieval from long-term memory) and method-based (i.e., requires calculation) arithmetic processing. Adult university students (math difficulties [MD] and control) performed simple arithmetic calculations while monitored using an fNIR system designed to image regions within the frontal cortices. Addition and subtraction problems presented on a computer screen belonged to one of three categories: triples "under 10" (e.g., 2+3=?, 5-3=?), triples that "break 10" (e.g., 5+8=?, 13-5=?), or triples "including 10" (e.g., 10+7=?, 17-10=?). fNIR recordings indicated significant interactions between type of triple, operation, and group over left frontal lobe, and between type of triple and group over right frontal lobe. Within-group differences among controls were found in the "break 10" triples with higher DeOxyHb level recorded during subtraction processing. Between-group differences were found in the "break 10" and "including 10" triples for subtraction with higher levels of DeOxyHb recorded among controls. Results imply that among adults frontal lobe is still involved during simple mathematical processing and fNIR recordings can differentiate its role in adults of varying mathematical ability.

Does silent reading speed in normal adult readers depend on early visual processes? evidence from event-related brain potentials.

Little is known about the relationship of reading speed and early visual processes in normal readers. Here we examined the association of the early P1, N170 and late N1 component in visual event-related potentials (ERPs) with silent reading speed and a number of additional cognitive skills in a sample of 52 adult German readers utilizing a Lexical Decision Task (LDT) and a Face Decision Task (FDT). Amplitudes of the N170 component in the LDT but, interestingly, also in the FDT correlated with behavioral tests measuring silent reading speed. We suggest that reading speed performance can be at least partially accounted for by the extraction of essential structural information from visual stimuli, consisting of a domain-general and a domain-specific expertise-based portion.

Rate- and accuracy-disabled subtype profiles among adults with dyslexia in the Hebrew orthography.

This study examined a subtyping scheme rooted in the dissociation between reading rate and accuracy in an exceptionally large sample of adult readers with dyslexia using a wide variety of behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) measures. Stage 1 was a behavioral study, in which basic reading skill, reading comprehension, linguistic and cognitive tasks were administered to 661 learning-disabled university students (n = 382) and their non-learning-disabled peers (n = 279). Based on a word reading measure, accuracy-disabled and rate-disabled subgroups were identified, as was a subgroup with deficits in both rate and accuracy. The results support the persistence of a rate versus accuracy dissociation into adulthood. Accuracy disability was related to a broad range of deficits affecting phonological, orthographic, and morphological processing, verbal memory, attention, and reading comprehension. Rate disability appeared to be associated with slower processing of printed material, alongside largely intact functioning resembling those of skilled readers. In stage 2, electroencephalogram (EEG)-ERP measurements were obtained from 140 participants recruited from the larger sample. Activation in visual association cortex, indicated by the N170 amplitude, was found to be lower for accuracy-disabled than skilled readers, and comparable between rate-disabled and skilled readers. The lowest amplitude was found in the double-deficit subgroup. The findings support the existence of distinctive reading disability profiles, based on selective deficits in reading rate versus accuracy and associated with different basic reading, linguistic, and cognitive skills as well as electrophysiological responses.

Toward an ERP-driven diagnostic approach for reading impairments.

This preliminary study attempted to use Event Related Brain Potentials (ERPs) to identify different causes for slow reading performance. At least two unique brain activity patterns were found for below average readers. Based on visual inspection of the N170 ERP component elicited by words in a lexical decision task, participants were either classified as N170-normal or N170-absent. Although both groups showed very dissimilar brain activity patterns, they did not differ in any reading or cognitive measures. Differences in brain activity were discussed as indicators for disturbances at specific stages of word processing, which should lead to individually adjusted intervention approaches.