Dichotic Listening to Temporal Tonal Stimuli by Good and Poor Readers

1997 ◽  
Vol 84 (2) ◽  
pp. 467-473 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Harel ◽  
Israel Nachson

The hypothesis that reading disability is associated with impairment in the lateralization of temporal stimuli was tested by presenting 123 good- and poor-reading boys (Grades 4 through 6) with dichotic sets of temporal and nontemporal tonal stimuli for recognition. Reading ability was assessed by measuring proficiency in reading consonants, vowels, words, sentences and short stories. On the tone test, good readers showed a right-ear advantage in reporting the temporal stimuli, and a left-ear advantage in reporting the nontemporal stimuli. Poor readers showed the reversed pattern of response. Since right-ear advantage in report of given stimuli indicates left-hemispheric dominance for processing those stimuli, the data seem to suggest a link between reading disability and left-hemispheric dysfunction in processing temporal stimuli.

1993 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva G. Bar-Shalom ◽  
Stephen Crain ◽  
Donald Shankweiler

ABSTRACTResearch from several sources indicates that reading disability is often associated with difficulty in comprehending some complex spoken sentences, including those with relative clauses. The present study exploits a new methodology, elicited production, to identify the source of comprehension difficulties of poor readers. Both the elicited production task and a conventional act-out task were employed in a study of 30 children (aged 7-8), who were selected for reading ability. On the act-out task, the poor readers displayed a high error rate on two relative clause structures (SO and OO relatives), as had been found by Mann, Shankweiler, and Smith (1984), but these structures were elicited from the poor readers as successfully as from the good readers (on more than 80% of trials).


2001 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 160-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ignacio Valencia ◽  
Gloria B. McAnulty ◽  
Deborah P. Waber ◽  
Frank H. Duffy

Our previous study demonstrated a physiologic deficit in two-tone discrimination in poor readers. 1 This was specific to the left parietal area suggesting that poor readers handled rapid tones differently. The current paper extends this finding in the same population, demonstrating that poor readers also have difficulty with phonemic discrimination. Long latency auditory evoked potentials (AEP) were formed using a phonemic discrimination task in a group of children with reading disabilities and controls. Measuring peak-to-peak amplitude of the waveforms, we found reduced N1-P2 amplitude in the Poor Reader group. Using the t-statistic significance probability map (SPM) technique, we also found a group difference, maximal over the mid-parietal area, from 584 msec to 626 msec after the stimulus onset. This difference was due to a lower amplitude on the Poor Reader group. We hypothesized that this late difference constitutes a P3 response and that the Poor Reader group generated smaller P3 waves. These auditory evoked response (AER) data support a discrimination deficit for close phonemes in the Poor Reader group as they had smaller N1-P2 absolute amplitude and developed smaller P3 waves. Based on these data we should be able to differentiate between Good and Poor readers based on long latency potentials created from phonemic stimuli.


1979 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 319-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lester A. Lefton ◽  
Richard J. Nagle ◽  
Gwendolyn Johnson ◽  
Dennis F. Fisher

While reading text, the eye movements of good and poor reading fifth graders, third graders and adults were assessed. Subjects were tested in two sessions one year apart. Dependent variables included the duration and frequency of forward going fixations and regressions; an analysis of individual differences was also made. Results showed that poor reading fifth graders have relatively unsystematic eye movement behavior with many more fixations of longer duration than other fifth graders and adults. The eye movements of poor readers are quantitatively and qualitatively different than those of normal readers.


1983 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Betty C. Holmes

The purpose of this investigation was to compare the question answering of good and poor readers when their prior knowledge for the answers to questions was determined before reading to be accurate, inaccurate, incomplete, or missing. Fifty-six fifth-grade students with equivalent I.Q.'s, but varying in reading ability and extent of general prior knowledge for the passage topics, participated in the study. Subjects read an expository passage written on their approximate instructional reading level. The results indicated that poor readers did not use prior knowledge to the same extent as did good readers. This was especially true when students were learning new information. The results also suggest that poor readers have difficulty answering text implicit questions even if they possess adequate prior knowledge for passage topics.


2016 ◽  
Vol 59 (6) ◽  
pp. 1436-1447 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly A. Murphy ◽  
Laura M. Justice ◽  
Ann A. O'Connell ◽  
Jill M. Pentimonti ◽  
Joan N. Kaderavek

Purpose The purpose of this study was to retrospectively examine the preschool language and early literacy skills of kindergarten good and poor readers, and to determine the extent to which these skills predict reading status. Method Participants were 136 children with language impairment enrolled in early childhood special education classrooms. On the basis of performance on a word recognition task given in kindergarten, children were classified as either good or poor readers. Comparisons were made across these 2 groups on a number of language and early literacy measures administered in preschool, and logistic regression was used to determine the best predictors of kindergarten reading status. Results Twenty-seven percent of the sample met criterion for poor reading in kindergarten. These children differed from good readers on most of the skills measured in preschool. The best predictors of kindergarten reading status were oral language, alphabet knowledge, and print concept knowledge. Presence of comorbid disabilities was not a significant predictor. Classification accuracy was good overall. Conclusion Results suggest that risk of reading difficulty for children with language impairment can be reliably estimated in preschool, prior to the onset of formal reading instruction. Measures of both language and early literacy skills are important for identifying which children are likely to develop later reading difficulties.


1989 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Zabrucky ◽  
Hilary Horn Ratner

Good and poor readers in the sixth grade ( M age = 11.92 years) were videotaped reading inconsistent stories presented one sentence at a time. Children's comprehension evaluation was assessed with on-line (reading times) and verbal report measures; comprehension regulation was assessed by examining look-backs during reading. All children read inconsistencies more slowly than consistent control information but good readers were more likely than poor readers to look back at inconsistencies during reading, to give accurate verbal reports of passage consistency following reading, and to recall text inconsistencies. Results highlight the importance of using multiple comprehension monitoring measures in assessing children's abilities and of treating comprehension monitoring as a multidimensional process.


2011 ◽  
Vol 22 (11) ◽  
pp. 1442-1451 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiroko Tanaka ◽  
Jessica M. Black ◽  
Charles Hulme ◽  
Leanne M. Stanley ◽  
Shelli R. Kesler ◽  
...  

Although the role of IQ in developmental dyslexia remains ambiguous, the dominant clinical and research approaches rely on a definition of dyslexia that requires reading skill to be significantly below the level expected given an individual’s IQ. In the study reported here, we used functional MRI (fMRI) to examine whether differences in brain activation during phonological processing that are characteristic of dyslexia were similar or dissimilar in children with poor reading ability who had high IQ scores (discrepant readers) and in children with poor reading ability who had low IQ scores (nondiscrepant readers). In two independent samples including a total of 131 children, using univariate and multivariate pattern analyses, we found that discrepant and nondiscrepant poor readers exhibited similar patterns of reduced activation in brain areas such as left parietotemporal and occipitotemporal regions. These results converge with behavioral evidence indicating that, regardless of IQ, poor readers have similar kinds of reading difficulties in relation to phonological processing.


1981 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 237-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean A. Walmsley ◽  
Kathleen M. Scott ◽  
Richard Lehrer

Good and poor readers (aged 60+) were tested on three versions of documents describing social services—the original document, a version simplified by a readability formula, and a version simplified ‘subjectively’ by skilled writers. Results indicate that in only one of the four documents (the longest one) was comprehension improved by subjective rewriting; simplification by readability formula had no effect on comprehension. Reading ability, however, was a significant covariate for comprehension. The study concludes that the ‘readability’ of a document is a poor indicator of its comprehensibility for aged subjects, and that simplifying the language of documents may not be sufficient in easing their comprehension difficulties.


1985 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 185-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosalind Horowitz ◽  
S. Jay Samuels

Poor reading comprehension may result from a general comprehension problem, a decoding problem, or a combination of these problems. Using a counterbalanced design, 38 good and poor sixth-grade readers read aloud and listened to easy and hard texts. Immediately after reading and listening, students orally retold what they had read or heard. Their recalls were scored for number of idea units produced. Results indicated no difference in listening comprehension between good and poor readers for either easy or hard texts, but a significant difference in oral reading comprehension in favor of good readers on both easy and hard texts. The finding of no difference in listening suggests that the poor readers in this sample did not have a general comprehension problem, while their poor oral reading performance indicates that they did have a decoding problem. These findings support a more complex comprehension process model of listening and reading than has typically been described in the literature.


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