Reading Performance Is Enhanced by Visual Texture Discrimination Training in Chinese-Speaking Children with Developmental Dyslexia

Although the dominant approach posits that developmental dyslexia arises from deficits in systems that are exclusively linguistic in nature (i.e., phonological deficit theory), dyslexics show a variety of lower level deficits in sensory and attentional processing. Although their link to the reading disorder remains contentious, recent empirical and computational studies suggest that spatial attention plays an important role in phonological decoding. The present behavioral study investigated exogenous spatial attention in dyslexic children and matched controls by measuring RTs to visual and auditory stimuli in cued-detection tasks. Dyslexics with poor nonword decoding accuracy showed a slower time course of visual and auditory (multisensory) spatial attention compared with both chronological age and reading level controls as well as compared with dyslexics with slow but accurate nonword decoding. Individual differences in the time course of multisensory spatial attention accounted for 31% of unique variance in the nonword reading performance of the entire dyslexic sample after controlling for age, IQ, and phonological skills. The present study suggests that multisensory “sluggish attention shifting”—related to a temporoparietal dysfunction—selectively impairs the sublexical mechanisms that are critical for reading development. These findings may offer a new approach for early identification and remediation of developmental dyslexia.

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Visual texture discrimination using random-dot patterns

Journal of the Optical Society of America ◽

10.1364/josa.67.000765 ◽

1977 ◽

Vol 67 (6) ◽

pp. 765 ◽

Cited By ~ 18

Author(s):

Stephen R. Purks ◽

Whitman Richards

Keyword(s):

Visual Texture ◽

Texture Discrimination ◽

Random Dot Patterns

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Perceptual expertise with Chinese characters predicts Chinese reading performance among Hong Kong Chinese children with developmental dyslexia

PLoS ONE ◽

10.1371/journal.pone.0243440 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 16 (1) ◽

pp. e0243440

Author(s):

Yetta Kwailing Wong ◽

Christine Kong-Yan Tong ◽

Ming Lui ◽

Alan C.-N. Wong

Keyword(s):

Hong Kong ◽

Developmental Dyslexia ◽

Word Reading ◽

Reading Performance ◽

Perceptual Fluency ◽

Hong Kong Chinese ◽

Perceptual Expertise ◽

Chinese Characters ◽

Chinese Reading ◽

Hong Kong Chinese Children

This study explores the theoretical proposal that developmental dyslexia involves a failure to develop perceptual expertise with words despite adequate education. Among a group of Hong Kong Chinese children diagnosed with developmental dyslexia, we investigated the relationship between Chinese word reading and perceptual expertise with Chinese characters. In a perceptual fluency task, the time of visual exposure to Chinese characters was manipulated and limited such that the speed of discrimination of a short sequence of Chinese characters at an accuracy level of 80% was estimated. Pair-wise correlations showed that perceptual fluency for characters predicted speeded and non-speeded word reading performance. Exploratory hierarchical regressions showed that perceptual fluency for characters accounted for 5.3% and 9.6% variance in speeded and non-speeded reading respectively, in addition to age, non-verbal IQ, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN) and perceptual fluency for digits. The findings suggest that perceptual expertise with words plays an important role in Chinese reading performance in developmental dyslexia, and that perceptual training is a potential remediation direction.

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