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Writing plays a key role in society. Yet, many children struggle in learning to write, and often this is related to difficulties in the development of their oral-language skills. For students with oral language difficulties text production is particularly challenging, yet there have been few attempts to consider the impact of different oral language problems on the production of written text. This book focuses on the relationship between oral language problems and writing problems for children with hearing loss, those with oral-language difficulties and those with dyslexia. The causes and nature of their writing problems are examined by experts in the fields. Authors from three continents and nine countries contributed their research to extend our understanding of the problems that these children face. The collection provides timely information across languages and countries, enhancing our understanding of the links between oral language problems and writing, informing both writing assessment and intervention.

Developmental dyslexia is a complex reading and writing disorder with strong genetic components. In previous genetic studies about dyslexia, a number of candidate genes have been identified. These include DCDC2, which has repeatedly been associated with developmental dyslexia in various European and American populations. However, data regarding this relationship are varied according to population. The Uyghur people of China represent a Eurasian population with an interesting genetic profile. Thus, this group may provide useful information about the association between DCDC2 gene polymorphisms and dyslexia. In the current study, we examined genetic data from 392 Uyghur children aged 8–12 years old from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. Participants included 196 children with dyslexia and 196 grade-, age-, and gender-matched controls. DNA was isolated from oral mucosal cell samples and fourteen single nucleotide polymorphisms（rs6456593, rs1419228, rs34647318, rs9467075, rs793862, rs9295619, rs807701, rs807724, rs2274305, rs7765678, rs4599626, rs6922023, rs3765502, and rs1087266） in DCDC2 were screened via the SNPscan method. We compared SNP frequencies in five models（Codominant, Dominant, Recessive, Heterozygote advantage, and Allele） between the two groups by means of the chi-squared test. A single-locus analysis indicated that, with regard to the allele frequency of these polymorphisms, three SNPs（rs807724, rs2274305, and rs4599626） were associated with dyslexia. rs9467075 and rs2274305 displayed significant associations with developmental dyslexia under the dominant model. rs6456593 and rs6922023 were significantly associated with developmental dyslexia under the dominant model and in the heterozygous genotype. Additionally, we discovered that the T-G-C-T of the four-marker haplotype（rs9295619-rs807701-rs807724-rs2274305） and the T-A of the two-marker haplotype（rs3765502-1087266） were significantly different between cases and controls. Thus, we conclude that DCDC2 gene polymorphisms are associated with developmental dyslexia in Chinese Uyghur children.

Developmental dyslexia, a severe deficit in literacy learning, is a neurodevelopmental learning disorder. Yet, it is not clear whether existing neurobiological accounts of dyslexia capture potential predispositions of the deficit or consequences of reduced reading experience. Here, we longitudinally followed 32 children from preliterate to school age using functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging techniques. Based on standardised and age-normed reading and spelling tests administered at school age, children were classified as 16 dyslexic participants and 16 controls. This longitudinal design allowed us to disentangle possible neurobiological predispositions for developing dyslexia from effects of individual differences in literacy experience. In our sample, the disorder can be predicted already before literacy learning from auditory cortex gyrification and aberrant downstream connectivity within the speech processing system. These results provide evidence for the notion that dyslexia may originate from an atypical maturation of the speech network that precedes literacy instruction. •Longitudinal MRI study following preliterate children developing dyslexia.•Auditory cortex folding was more variable in dyslexic children.•Altered speech network connectivity in dyslexia predates literacy instruction.•Combination of neural and behavioural data reliably predicted dyslexia before school.

David Tomé,1,2 Ilídio Pereira,3 Maria Celeste Vieira,4 Ana Paula Soares,5 Fernando Barbosa6 1Department of Audiology, Center for Rehabilitation Research (CiR), School of Health (E2S), Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Porto, Portugal; 2Serviço de Neurologia do Hospital de São João, EPE, Porto, Portugal; 3Department of Biomathematics, Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, School of Health (E2S), Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Porto, Portugal; 4Clínica de Dislexia, Matosinhos, Portugal; 5Department of Basic Psychology, School of Psychology, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal; 6Laboratory of Neuropsychophysiology, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Porto, Porto, PortugalCorrespondence: David Tomé, School of Health (E2S), Rua Dr. António Bernardino de Almeida, 400, Porto, 4200-072, Portugal, Tel +351 222 061 000, Email dts@ess.ipp.ptPurpose: Benign rolandic epilepsy or benign epilepsy in childhood with centrotemporal spikes (BECTS) and developmental dyslexia (DD) are two of the most studied disorders in childhood. Despite decades of research, the neurophysiological mechanisms underpinning these disorders are largely unknown. Here, we use auditory event-related potentials (AERPs) to shed light on these issues, since several authors have reported the existence of language and learning impairments. AERPs reflect the activation of different neuronal populations and are suggested to contribute to the evaluation of auditory discrimination (N1), attention allocation and phonological categorization (N2), and echoic memory (mismatch negativity (MMN]).Patients and Methods: This study aims to investigate and document AERP changes in a group of children with BECTS and another group with DD. AERPs were recorded to pure-tones and consonant–vowel (CV) stimuli in an auditory oddball paradigm in eight children with BECTS, seven with DD, and 11 gender- and age-matched controls.Results: The results revealed perceptual deficits for pure-tone and CV stimuli (pre-attentional and auditory discrimination) in DD, related to N1 reduced amplitude (p< 0.05; Fz: 2.57 μV, Cz: 2.75 μV). The BECTS group revealed no significant results for N1; however, there was an increase in N2b latency.Conclusion: The findings in the DD group support the anchor-deficit hypothesis as an explanation for neurolinguistic deficits. The increased N2b latency in the BECTS group could be related to a potential lack of inhibitory mechanisms of pyramidal neurons, as justified by the process of epileptogenesis.Keywords: N1, N2b, auditory processing, developmental dyslexia, BECTS

We examined the evidence from functional imaging studies for predominance of a phonological left temporo-parietal (TP) dysfunction in dyslexic children and predominance of a visual-orthographic left occipito-temporal (OT) dysfunction in dyslexic adults. Separate meta-analyses of 9 studies with children (age means: 9–11years) and of 9 studies with adults (age means: 18–30years) and statistical comparison of these meta-analytic maps did find support for a dysfunction of a left ventral OT region in both children and adults. The findings on a possible predominance of a left TP dysfunction in children were inconclusive. Contrary to expectation, underactivation in superior temporal regions was only found for adults, but not for children. For children, underactivation was found in bilateral inferior parietal regions, but this abnormality was no longer present when foci identified by higher dyslexic task-negative activation (i.e., deactivation in response to reading compared to baseline) were excluded. These meta-analytic results are consistent with recent findings speaking for an early engagement of left OT regions in reading development and for an early failure of such an engagement in dyslexia. ►Dysfunction of a left ventral OT region in both dyslexic children and adults. ►Increased deactivation of bilateral IPL in dyslexic children. ►Dyslexic overactivation in articulatory precentral and subcortical regions.

Quickly acquire the knowledge and skills you need to effectively understand, assess, and treat individuals struggling with dyslexia Essentials of Dyslexia Assessment and Intervention provides practical, step-by-step information on accurately identifying, assessing, and using evidence-based interventions with individuals with dyslexia. Addressing the components that need to be considered in the assessment of dyslexia-both cognitive and academic-this book includes descriptions of the various tests used in a comprehensive dyslexia assessment along with detailed, evidence-based interventions that professionals and parents can use to help individuals struggling with dyslexia. Like all the volumes in the Essentials of Psychological Assessment series, each concise chapter features numerous callout boxes highlighting key concepts, bulleted points, and extensive illustrative material, as well as test questions that help you gauge and reinforce your grasp of the information covered. Providing an in-depth look at dyslexia, this straightforward book presents information that will prepare school psychologists, neuropsychologists, educational diagnosticians, special education teachers, as well as general education teachers, to recognize, assess, and provide effective treatment programs for dyslexia. The book is also a good resource for parents who are helping a child with dyslexia. A practical guide to understanding, assessing, and helping individuals who have dyslexia Expert advice and tips throughout Conveniently formatted for rapid reference Other titles in the Essentials of Psychological Assessment series: Essentials of Assessment Report Writing Essentials of School Neuropsychological Assessment Essentials of Evidence-Based Academic Interventions Essentials of Response to Intervention Essentials of Processing Assessment Essentials of Conners Behavior Assessments Essentials of Cross-Battery Assessment, Second Edition Essentials of WISC-IV Assessment, Second Edition

Although the neural basis of dyslexia has intensively been investigated, results are still unclear about the existence of a white matter deficit in the arcuate fasciculus (AF) throughout development. To unravel this ambiguity, we examined the difference in fractional anisotropy (FA) of the AF between children developing dyslexia and children developing typical reading skills in a longitudinal sample with three MRI time points throughout reading development: the pre-reading stage (5–6 years old), the early reading stage (7–8 years old) and the advanced reading stage (9–10 years old). Applying along-the-tract analyses of white matter organization, our results confirmed that a white matter deficit existed in the left AF prior to the onset of formal reading instruction in children who developed dyslexia later on. This deficit was consistently present throughout the course of reading development. Additionally, we evaluated the use of applying a continuous approach on the participants’ reading skills rather than the arbitrary categorization in individuals with or without dyslexia. Our results confirmed the predictive relation between FA and word reading measurements later in development. This study supports the use of longitudinal approaches to investigate the neural basis of the developmental process of learning to read and the application of triangulation, i.e. using multiple research approaches to help gain more insight and aiding the interpretation of obtained results.

Background: Developmental dyslexia (DD) is a specific learning disorder concerning reading acquisition that may has a lifelong negative impact on individuals. A reliable estimate of the prevalence of DD serves as the basis for diagnosis, intervention, and evidence-based health resource allocation and policy-making. Hence, the present meta-analysis aims to generate a reliable prevalence estimate of DD worldwide in primary school children and explore the potential variables related to that prevalence. Methods: Studies from the 1950s to June 2021 were collated using a combination of search terms related to DD and prevalence. Study quality was assessed using the STROBE guidelines according to the study design, with study heterogeneity assessed using the I2 statistic, and random-effects meta-analyses were conducted. Variations in the prevalence of DD in different subgroups were assessed via subgroup meta-analysis and meta-regression. Results: The pooled prevalence of DD was 7.10% (95% CI: 6.27–7.97%). The prevalence in boys was significantly higher than that in girls (boys: 9.22%, 95%CI, 8.07–10.44%; girls: 4.66%, 95% CI, 3.84–5.54%; p < 0.001), but no significant difference was found in the prevalence across different writing systems (alphabetic scripts: 7.26%, 95%CI, 5.94–8.71%; logographic scripts: 6.97%, 95%CI, 5.86–8.16%; p > 0.05) or across different orthographic depths (shallow: 7.13%, 95% CI, 5.23–9.30%; deep: 7.55%, 95% CI, 4.66–11.04%; p > 0.05). It is worth noting that most articles had small sample sizes with diverse operational definitions, making comparisons challenging. Conclusions: This study provides an estimation of worldwide DD prevalence in primary school children. The prevalence was higher in boys than in girls but was not significantly different across different writing systems.

Statistical learning (SL), the ability to pick up patterns in sensory input, serves as one of the building blocks of language acquisition. Although SL has been studied extensively in developmental dyslexia (DD), much less is known about the way SL evolves over time. The handful of studies examining this question were all limited to the acquisition of motor sequential knowledge or highly learned segmented linguistic units. Here we examined memory consolidation of statistical regularities in adults with DD and typically developed (TD) readers by using auditory SL requiring the segmentation of units from continuous input, which represents one of the earliest learning challenges in language acquisition. DD and TD groups were exposed to tones in a probabilistically determined sequential structure varying in difficulty and subsequently tested for recognition of novel short sequences that adhered to this statistical pattern in immediate and delayed-recall sessions separated by a night of sleep. SL performance of the DD group at the easy and hard difficulty levels was poorer than that of the TD group in the immediate-recall session. Importantly, DD participants showed a significant overnight deterioration in SL performance at the medium difficulty level compared to TD, who instead showed overnight stabilization of the learned information. These findings imply that SL difficulties in DD may arise not only from impaired initial learning but also due to a failure to consolidate statistically structured information into long-term memory. We hypothesize that these deficits disrupt the typical course of language acquisition in those with DD.

Reversal errors (e.g., confusing b with d, or R with Я) are common in beginning readers and often persist in individuals with developmental dyslexia due to mirror invariance —an evolutionary-old perceptual tendency of processing mirror images as equivalent. This study investigated whether dyslexic adults still struggle with mirror-image discrimination when processing reversible letters (i.e., differing only by orientation; e.g., d, b, p) and nonreversible letters (i.e., differing also in shape; e.g., f, t, r). In a masked priming lexical decision task, one letter of the prime was manipulated by letter-type (reversible, nonreversible) and prime-condition : identity (e.g., judo, zero), control (judo, zero), mirrored-letter (jubo, zero), or rotated-letter (jupo, zero). Both dyslexic and neurotypical readers showed identity priming effects: faster recognition of target-words preceded by identity than control primes. Neurotypical readers also showed mirror and rotation costs , regardless of letter-type: slower word recognition after mirrored- or rotated-letter primes than an identity prime. In contrast, and for nonreversible letters only, dyslexics were as fast in recognizing target-words preceded by identity as by mirrored-letter primes (qualified by Bayesian statistics). These findings suggest that, despite extensive reading experience, orthographic processing by dyslexic college students remains residually sensitive to mirror invariance.