Early life stress, literacy and dyslexia: an evolutionary perspective.

Stress and learning co-evolved in parallel, with their interdependence critical to the survival of the species. Even today, the regulation of moderate levels of stress by the central autonomic network (CAN), especially during pre- and post-natal periods, facilitates biological adaptability and is an essential precursor for the cognitive requisites of learning to read. Reading is a remarkable evolutionary achievement of the human brain, mysteriously unusual, because it is not pre-wired with a genetic address to facilitate its acquisition. There is no gene for reading. The review suggests that reading co-opts a brain circuit centered in the left hemisphere ventral occipital cortex that evolved as a domain-general visual processor. Its adoption by reading depends on the CAN's coordination of the learning and emotional requirements of learning to read at the metabolic, cellular, synaptic, and network levels. By stabilizing a child's self-control and modulating the attention network's inhibitory controls over the reading circuit, the CAN plays a key role in school readiness and learning to read. In addition, the review revealed two beneficial CAN evolutionary adjustments to early-life stress "overloads" that come with incidental costs of school under-performance and dyslexia. A short-term adaptation involving methylation of the FKBP5 and NR3C1 genes is a liability for academic achievement in primary school. The adaptation leading to dyslexia induces alterations in BDNF trafficking, promoting long-term adaptive fitness by protecting against excessive glucocorticoid toxicity but risks reading difficulties by disruptive signaling from the CAN to the attention networks and the reading circuit.

Programa de estimulação no ambiente educacional para aprimoramento de habilidades subjacentes à leitura / Stimulation program in an educational setting for improvement of skills underlying reading

RESUMO Objetivo elaborar e investigar o efeito de um programa de estimulação de habilidades cognitivo-linguísticas preditoras da decodificação leitora, orientado para a melhora das habilidades subjacentes à leitura. Métodos pesquisa prospectiva, de análise quantitativa. Participaram 124 crianças de 1º a 3º ano do Ensino Fundamental I de uma escola pública de São Paulo, distribuídas em: Grupo Pesquisa - 62 escolares que passaram por intervenção; Grupo Controle: 62 escolares que não receberam estimulação. Avaliaram-se individualmente (pré e pós-intervenção) parâmetros de fluência leitora (taxa e acurácia) em tarefa com palavras isoladas. O programa contou com tarefas destinadas a estimular a discriminação auditiva, conhecimento morfossintático, acesso fonológico ao léxico mental, consciência fonológica, conhecimento do código escrito, fluência leitora e o vocabulário visual de palavras e foi construído para aprimorar, em dez sessões de estimulação coletiva, a decodificação e reconhecimento automático de palavras. Resultados o Grupo Pesquisa apresentou maiores diferenças de acurácia e escore na leitura de palavras, quando comparados os resultados das avaliações pré e pós-intervenção com os do Grupo Controle. Conclusão: o programa promoveu a fluência leitora de escolares do 1º e 2º anos do Ensino Fundamental I. Incrementos significativos foram observados para a discriminação auditiva, consciência fonológica e automaticidade leitora, com variações em função do ano escolar.

ABSTRACT Purpose To develop and investigate the effect of a program that stimulates cognitive-linguistic skills predictive of phonological decoding skills aimed at improving of skills underlying reading. Methods The research design was a prospective cohort study with quantitative analysis. A total of 124 1st - 3rd grade children from a public Ensino Fundamental I school in São Paulo, participated in the study, divided into: Research Group - 62 students who underwent intervention; Control Group: 62 students who did not receive stimulation. Reading fluency parameters (rate and accuracy) were individually evaluated (pre- and post-intervention) in a task with isolated words. The program had tasks designed to stimulate auditory discrimination, morphosyntactic knowledge, phonological access to the mental lexicon, phonological awareness, knowledge of the written code, reading fluency and the visual vocabulary of words. It was built to improve decoding and automatic word recognition skills in ten sessions of collective stimulation. Results The Research Group showed greater differences in accuracy and score in word reading, when comparing the results of pre- and post-intervention assessments, than the Control Group. Conclusion The program promoted the reading fluency of 1st and 2nd grade students. Significant increments were observed for auditory discrimination, phonological awareness and reading automaticity with variations depending on the grade.

Outcomes of a Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial of the SoMe Social Media Literacy Program for Improving Body Image-Related Outcomes in Adolescent Boys and Girls.

Although the negative effect of social media use among youth on body image and eating concerns has been established, few classroom-based resources that can decrease these effects through targeting social media literacy skills have been developed. This study aimed to test the efficacy of SoMe, a social media literacy body image, dieting, and wellbeing program for adolescents, through a cluster randomized controlled trial. Participants (n = 892; Mage = 12.77, SD = 0.74; range 11-15; 49.5% male) were randomized by school (n = 8) to receive either weekly SoMe (n = 483) or control sessions (lessons as usual; n = 409) over 4 weeks in their classroom. Participants completed surveys at four timepoints (baseline, 1-week post-intervention, and 6- and 12-month follow-up) assessing body dissatisfaction, dietary restraint, strategies to increase muscles (primary outcomes), self-esteem and depressive symptoms (secondary outcomes), and internalization of appearance ideals and appearance comparison (exploratory outcomes). Modest positive intervention effects were found in dietary restraint and depressive symptoms at 6-month follow-up in girls but few positive effects emerged for boys. The findings provide only preliminary support for a social media literacy intervention, but suggest the usefulness of both identifying those who benefit most from a universally delivered intervention and the need to refine the intervention to maximize intervention effects.

A protocol to examine the learning effects of 'multisystem mapping' training combined with post-training sleep consolidation in beginning readers.

We have recently used randomized controlled trials to examine the impact of a short neuroscience-informed causal intervention using a targeted training to inhibit a deeply rooted visual mechanism (mirror invariance) that hinders literacy acquisition, combined with post-training sleep (for learning consolidation). Using this training protocol, we have shown unprecedented improvements in visual perception of letters, writing, and a two-fold increase in reading fluency in first graders. Here, we describe this ecologically valid school-based intervention protocol to probe inhibition of mirror invariance for letters, including the detailed training instructions, post-training sleep consolidation, as well as practical tips and potential adaptations to different school sizes. For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Torres et al., (2021).

Behavioral contagion on social media: Effects of social norms, design interventions, and critical media literacy on self-disclosure.

Social norms are powerful determinants of human behaviors in offline and online social worlds. While previous research established a correlational link between norm perceptions and self-reported disclosure on social network sites (SNS), questions remain about downstream effects of prevalent behaviors on perceived norms and actual disclosure on SNS. We conducted two preregistered studies using a realistic social media simulation. We further analyzed buffering effects of critical media literacy and privacy nudging. The results demonstrate a disclosure behavior contagion, whereby a critical mass of posts with visual disclosures shifted norm perceptions, which, in turn, affected perceivers' own visual disclosure behavior. Critical media literacy was negatively related and moderated the effect of norms on visual disclosure behavioral intentions. Neither critical media literacy nor privacy nudge affected actual disclosure behaviors, however. These results provide insights into how behaviors may spread on SNS through triggering changes in perceived social norms and subsequent disclosure behaviors.

Why don't illiterate women in rural, Northern Tanzania, access maternal healthcare?

BACKGROUND: In 2017, roughly 540 women in Sub-Saharan Africa died every day from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. To stem this public-health crisis, the WHO recommends a standard continuity of maternal healthcare, yet most women do not receive this care. Surveys suggest that illiteracy limits the uptake of the recommended care, yet little is understood about why this is so. This gap in understanding why healthcare is not sought by illiterate women compromises the ability of public health experts and healthcare providers to provide culturally relevant policy and practice. This study consequently explores the lived experiences related to care-seeking by illiterate women of reproductive age in rural Tanzania to determine why they may not access maternal healthcare services. METHODS: An exploratory, qualitative study was conducted in four communities encompassing eight focus group discussions with 81 illiterate women, 13 in-depth interviews with illiterate women and seven key-informant interviews with members of these communities who have first-hand experience with the decisions made by women concerning maternal care. Interviews were conducted in the informant's native language. The interviews were coded, then triangulated. RESULTS: Two themes emerged from the analysis: 1) a communication gap arising from a) the women's inability to read public-health documents provided by health facilities, and b) healthcare providers speaking a language, Swahili, that these women do not understand, and 2) a dependency by these women on family and neighbors to negotiate these barriers. Notably, these women understood of the potential benefits of maternal healthcare. CONCLUSIONS: These women knew they should receive maternal healthcare but could neither read the public-health messaging provided by the clinics nor understand the language of the healthcare providers. More health needs of this group could be met by developing a protocol for healthcare providers to determine who is illiterate, providing translation services for those unable to speak Swahili, and graphic public health messaging that does not require literacy. A failure to address the needs of this at-risk group will likely mean that they will continue to experience barriers to obtaining maternal care with detrimental health outcomes for both mothers and newborns.

Stability of Literacy Profiles of Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorder and Associations With Stakeholder Perceptions of Appropriate High School Support Needs.

Purpose For many individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), postsecondary outcomes are poor. This may be due to insufficient academic supports, particularly with regard to literacy skills, during high school. More information is needed about skill profiles so that we can better differentiate support for students with varying social, communication, cognitive, and academic proficiency levels. This study was designed to (a) identify unique literacy profiles of high school students with ASD, (b) assess profile stability over time, (c) identify predictors of profile membership, and (d) analyze stakeholder reports of required school support intensity. Method Participants were a diverse sample of high school students with ASD, 14-21 years old (N = 544), their parents, and their teachers who participated in a randomized controlled trial of a comprehensive treatment model for high school students with ASD. Standardized measures were administered to assess nonverbal IQ, autism symptomatology, language/adaptive communication, reading comprehension, academic knowledge, and parent/teacher report of school support needs intensity. Latent transition analysis was conducted to examine sample heterogeneity and to explore the stability of the profiles. Associations between profiles and reports of support intensity were examined. Results Four literacy profiles were identified that were stable over 2 years: Emergent Literacy/Comprehensive Support, Low Literacy/Intensive Support, Average Literacy/Moderate Support, and Average Literacy/Limited Support. Parent and teacher reports of school support intensity generally aligned with the profiles. Conclusions These analyses provide insight into the diverse literacy and support needs in ASD. Implications for practice and the role of speech-language pathologists in assessment and intervention are discussed. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.13495119.

Literacy-supporting skills in college students with specific reading comprehension deficit and developmental language disorder.

Specific reading comprehension deficit (S-RCD) and developmental language disorder (DLD) are both commonly occurring developmental disorders of language. The ways in which these disorders do and do not overlap during childhood are a matter of debate (Nation & Norbury, 2005). Moreover, in both populations, the challenges faced by individuals in adulthood are understudied. Here, we combined data across cohorts of college students, and classified individuals with only S-RCD (n = 20), only DLD (n = 55), and co-occurring S-RCD and DLD (n = 13). Individuals with good language and reading skills, who matched those with S-RCD on decoding, comprised our typical language and reading group (TD; n = 20). Beyond the measures used for classification, group-level differences were identified in sentence-level reading fluency, phonological processing, verbal working memory, and rapid automatized naming. We found that skill profiles differed across groups; however, we found no evidence of weaknesses beyond the core deficit in reading comprehension observed in those with only S-RCD. In contrast, when S-RCD co-occurs with DLD, weaknesses are observed in phonological processing, as well as reading fluency and verbal working memory. These findings suggest that some adults with S-RCD have co-occurring DLD as a core weakness. These findings, as well as differences between individuals with S-RCD and DLD, are further discussed.

Overcoming the hurdles: Understanding motivation and supporting adult learners with poor literacy and dyslexia in the homelessness sector.

Literacy difficulties are often reported by adults with experience of homelessness. Yet, research on their learning experiences and clarity on how best to support this group is lacking. The present study explored the experience of homeless literacy learners (HLLs) and asked what motivated them to engage with literacy support and the teaching-related factors perceived to be most effective. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 HLLs (aged 31-68) engaged in literacy provision at a homelessness charity in the United Kingdom. Thematic analysis of the data revealed five key themes: challenging early experiences; barriers to improving literacy; the perceived impact of poor literacy; current motivation to improve literacy; and approaches that support literacy in adulthood. A significant majority of HLLs reported early traumatic learning experiences and 7 out of 10 (70%) disclosed a diagnosis of dyslexia. Specialist dyslexia support was reported to help HLLs feel understood and positive relationships with teachers helped self-esteem and self-efficacy related to their literacy learning. Recommendations are made for specialist teachers to be made more readily available to support HLLs, as well as to advise service providers and professionals engaging with adult learners with experience of homelessness across the sector.

Help-seeking attitudes and intentions for generalised anxiety disorder in adolescents: the role of anxiety literacy and stigma.

Help seeking for anxiety tends to be low in adolescents. Identifying modifiable factors that may facilitate help seeking is important. The aim of the current study is to test the effects of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) literacy and stigma (personal and perceived) on attitudes and intentions toward seeking help from professionals and key adult sources. 1767 adolescents aged 12-18 years participated in the current study and completed measures of GAD literacy, GAD stigma, professional help-seeking attitudes, and intentions to seek help from a range of sources. The results of the study found that participants had limited GAD literacy and up to 20% personally agreed with stigmatising statements about GAD. Participants reported greater intentions to seek help from parents than from formal sources. More positive attitudes toward seeking help were associated with higher levels of GAD literacy (p < 0.001) and lower personal GAD stigma (p < 0.001). Lower perceived GAD stigma was associated with increased intentions to seek help from their mothers (p < 0.05) or fathers (p < 0.01), while lower personal GAD stigma was also associated with help-seeking intentions from their mothers (p < 0.05). Higher perceived GAD stigma was associated with intentions to seek help from nobody (p < 0.001). Overall, the current study highlights the important role that parents can play in the help-seeking process for adolescents, with parents often the most accessible source of help. Improving parent and adolescent knowledge and attitudes towards GAD may help to improve early help seeking in young people.

Investigating Bidirectional Links Between the Quality of Teacher-Child Relationships and Children's Interest and Pre-Academic Skills in Literacy and Math.

This study investigated bidirectional links between the quality of teacher-child relationships and children's interest and pre-academic skills in literacy and math. Furthermore, differences in the patterns of bidirectionality between boys and girls were explored. Participants were 461 Finnish kindergarteners (6-year-olds) and their teachers (n = 48). Teachers reported their closeness and conflict with each child twice throughout the kindergarten year. Children rated their interest in literacy and math, and were tested on their pre-academic skills. Cross-lagged path models indicated that teacher-perceived conflict predicted lower interest and pre-academic skills in both literacy and math. Results were similar for boys and girls. Implications for reducing conflictual patterns of relationships, together with promoting other factors, are discussed.

The reciprocal relation between morphological awareness and spelling in Chinese: A longitudinal study of primary school students.

Spelling is a literacy skill that must be mastered during children's academic development. It involves a variety of cognitive factors, including morphological awareness. Studies in the alphabet and Chinese systems have shown that there is a close relationship between morphological awareness and spelling. Although there is clearly a significant unidirectional effect of morphological awareness on spelling significantly, few studies have explored the bidirectional relationship between morphological awareness and spelling. This three-time point longitudinal study was designed to investigate the reciprocal effects of morphological awareness and character spelling in Chinese. Participants included 124 children from two primary schools in Mainland China. The students were tracked from first grade to third grade and were administered a battery of tests to measure morphological awareness (e.g., homophone awareness, homograph awareness, and compounding awareness) and spelling to dictation, controlling for IQ, phonological awareness, and orthographic awareness. A structural equation model was utilized to examine the reciprocal relation between the students' morphological awareness and character spelling. Results showed that earlier morphological awareness predicted subsequent spelling abilities from first grade to third grade and spelling in first grade predicted morphological awareness in second grade; however, spelling in second grade did not predict the subsequent morphological awareness in third grade. This study suggests that there is a bidirectional association between morphological awareness and spelling from first grade to second grade in Chinese, and a unidirectional association between morphological awareness and spelling from second grade to third grade. Future studies could examine the causal relationship between morphological awareness and character spelling by using an instructional intervention.

Pre-literacy heterogeneity in Dutch-speaking kindergartners: latent profile analysis.

Research demonstrated that a dyslexia diagnosis is mainly given after the most effective time for intervention has passed, referred to as the dyslexia paradox. Although some pre-reading cognitive measures have been found to be strong predictors of early literacy acquisition, i.e., phonological awareness (PA), letter knowledge (LK), and rapid automatized naming (RAN), more insight in the variability of pre-reading profiles might be of great importance for early identification of children who have an elevated risk for developing dyslexia and to provide tailor-made interventions. To address this issue, this study used a latent profile analysis (LPA) to disentangle different pre-reading profiles in a sample of 1091 Dutch-speaking kindergartners. Four profiles emerged: high performers (16.50%), average performers (40.24%), below-average performers with average IQ (25.57%), and below-average performers with below-average IQ (17.69%). These results suggested two at-risk profiles diverging in IQ, which are presumably more likely to develop dyslexia later on. Although below-average profiles differed significantly in rapid naming and IQ, no clear evidence for the double-deficit theory was found in Dutch-speaking kindergartners. Educational level and reading history of the parents appeared to be predictive for children's classification membership. Our results point towards the heterogeneity that is already present in kindergartners and the possibility to identify at-risk profiles prior to reading instruction, which may be the foundation for earlier targeted interventions. However, more extended research is needed to determine the stability of these profiles across time and across different languages.

Infant-directed input and literacy effects on phonological processing: Non-word repetition scores among the Tsimane'.

Language input in childhood and literacy (and/or schooling) have been described as two key experiences impacting phonological processing. In this study, we assess phonological processing via a non-word repetition (NWR) group game, in adults and children living in two villages of an ethnic group where infants are rarely spoken to, and where literacy is variable. We found lower NWR scores than in previous work for both children (N = 17; aged 1-12 years) and adults (N = 13; aged 18-60 years), which is consistent with the hypothesis that there would be long-term effects on phonological processing of experiencing low levels of directed input in infancy. Additionally, we found some evidence that literacy and/or schooling increases NWR scores, although results should be interpreted with caution given the small sample size. These findings invite further investigations in similar communities, as current results are most compatible with phonological processing being influenced by aspects of language experience that vary greatly between and within populations.

Forum: Morphological Awareness as a Key Factor in Language-Literacy Success for Academic Achievement.

Purpose This article introduces the Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools Forum: Morphological Awareness as a Key Factor in Language-Literacy Success for Academic Achievement. The goal of this forum is to relate the influence morphological awareness (MA) has on overall language and literacy development with morphology acting as the "binding agent" between orthography, phonology, and semantics (Perfetti, 2007) in assessment and intervention for school-aged children. Method This introduction provides a foundation for MA development and explores the influence MA has over the course of school-aged language and literacy development. Through summaries of the 11 articles in this forum, school-based speech-language pathologists will be able to convey the importance of MA to promote successful educational outcomes for kindergarten to adolescent students. The forum explores researcher-developed assessments used to help identify MA skill level in first- through eighth-grade students at risk for literacy failure to support instructional needs. The forum also provides school-based speech-language pathologists with details to design and implement MA interventions to support academic success for school-aged students with varying speech-language needs (e.g., dual language emersion, vocabulary development, reading comprehension) using various service delivery models (e.g., small group, classroom-based, intensive summer camps). Conclusion MA is effective in facilitating language and literacy development and as such can be an ideally focused on using multilinguistic approaches for assessment and intervention. The articles in this issue highlight the importance in assessment measures and intervention approaches that focus on students' MA to improve overall academic success in children of all ages and abilities.

The Importance of Morphological Awareness in Bilingual Language and Literacy Skills: Clinical Implications for Speech-Language Pathologists.

Purpose This clinical focus article will highlight the importance and role of morphological awareness (MA) across orthographies, in particular, the role it plays in reading development, specifically with bilingual populations. MA supports reading acquisition and development beyond other predictors of reading, such as phonological awareness, orthographic knowledge, and rapid automatic naming to name a few. While MA aids in the development of decoding fluency, vocabulary development, and reading comprehension, explicit morphological instruction does not occur regularly in reading intervention. For English learners (ELs), instruction should focus on improving MA, semantic awareness, and orthographic processing, which in turn would exert a positive influence on reading accuracy, fluency, and comprehension. This clinical focus article aims to provide speech-language pathologists with applicable tasks to measure MA and strategies to guide explicit morphological instruction. Method The role of MA in reading development will be described with regard to its importance beyond other predictors and the role it plays in theoretical models of reading development. Then, MA will be described across orthographies, with a focus on cross-linguistic influences. Finally, measurement tasks will be described, and clinical implications will be discussed in terms of using different strategies and tools to explicitly address MA. Conclusion Clinical implications of morphological instruction should be further explored and incorporated in current practices. With regard to ELs, it is important that we provide effective and specific instruction to better bridge the academic achievement gaps and increase overall language and literacy skills. Morphological instruction should be explicit and provided in conjunction with other domains of language. Equally important is leveraging families of ELs to promote their children's oral language and literacy in their first language.

Morphological Awareness Skills of Second- and Third-Grade Students With and Without Speech Sound Disorders.

Purpose Morphological awareness is the ability to consciously manipulate the smallest units of meaning in language. Morphological awareness contributes to success with literacy skills for children with typical language and those with language impairment. However, little research has focused on the morphological awareness skills of children with speech sound disorders (SSD), who may be at risk for literacy impairments. No researcher has examined the morphological awareness skills of children with SSD and compared their skills to children with typical speech using tasks representing a comprehensive definition of morphological awareness, which was the main purpose of this study. Method Thirty second- and third-grade students with SSD and 30 with typical speech skills, matched on age and receptive vocabulary, completed four morphological awareness tasks and measures of receptive vocabulary, real-word reading, pseudoword reading, and word-level spelling. Results Results indicated there was no difference between the morphological awareness skills of students with and without SSD. Although morphological awareness was moderately to strongly related to the students' literacy skills, performance on the morphological awareness tasks contributed little to no additional variance to the children's real-word reading and spelling skills beyond what was accounted for by pseudoword reading. Conclusions Findings suggest that early elementary-age students with SSD may not present with concomitant morphological awareness difficulties and that the morphological awareness skills of these students may not play a unique role in their word-level literacy skills. Limitations and suggestions for future research on the morphological awareness skills of children with SSD are discussed.

Morphological Supports: Investigating Differences in How Morphological Knowledge Supports Reading Comprehension for Middle School Students With Limited Reading Vocabulary.

Purpose The current study takes a practical and theoretically grounded look at assessment of morphological knowledge and its potential to deepen understanding of how morphological knowledge supports reading comprehension for students with limited reading vocabulary. Specifically, we explore how different morphological skills support reading comprehension for students with typical reading vocabulary development compared to students with limited reading vocabulary. Method A sample of 1,140 fifth through eighth graders were assessed via a gamified, computer-adaptive measure of language that contained a morphological knowledge assessment. Links to standardized reading comprehension were explored with a focus on determining differences for the 184 students in the sample who showed limited reading vocabulary knowledge. Specifically, multiple regression analyses were used to test for the relation between morphology skills and standardized reading comprehension, as well as the moderator effect of reading vocabulary on the relation between morphological knowledge and standardized reading comprehension. Results Findings indicate that the four instructionally malleable morphological skills identified by the assessment differentially supported reading comprehension. These skills were (a) Morphological Awareness, (b) Syntactic Morphological Knowledge, (c) Semantic Morphological Knowledge, and (d) Phonological/Orthographic Morphological Knowledge. Significant interactions for students with limited reading vocabulary were shown in how the skills of Syntactic Morphological Knowledge, Semantic Morphological Knowledge, and Phonological/Orthographic Morphological Knowledge supported standardized Reading Comprehension. Conclusions Given the challenges students with limited reading vocabulary have with semantic information, Syntactic Morphological Knowledge and Phonological/Orthographic Morphological Knowledge were particularly supportive, suggesting the compensatory role of these morphological skills. In contrast, Semantic Morphological Knowledge had a negative relationship with Reading Comprehension for students with limited reading vocabulary. Implications for theory, research, and practice are discussed.