The Relationship Between Oral Language and Reading in English-Only, Proficient Bilingual, and Emergent Bilingual Adolescents

The chapter examined the English language and reading outcomes and the relationship between language and reading for two bilingual adolescent groups (Proficient Bilinguals and Emergent Bilinguals) and their English-only peers (n = 78 total). Participants completed a variety of English language assessments, and their scores from a standardized accountability reading assessment were collected from their teachers. Results from the study showed that Proficient Bilinguals performed comparably to their English-only peers in all language and reading measures, suggesting that simply being bilingual does not detract from adolescents' English language proficiency. Furthermore, the relationships between oral language and reading differed as a function of participants' English language proficiency. Oral language skills correlated with reading for both bilinguals and English-only adolescents, but the relationships were more robust for bilinguals than for English-only adolescents. Finally, the relationship between speech production and reading was significantly only for Emergent Bilinguals and not for Proficient Bilinguals.

Predictability effects and parafoveal processing in older readers

Normative aging is accompanied by visual and cognitive changes that impact the systems that are critical for fluent reading. The patterns of eye movements during reading displayed by older adults have been characterized as demonstrating a trade-off between longer forward saccades and more word skipping versus higher rates of regressions back to previously read text. This pattern is assumed to reflect older readers’ reliance on top-down contextual information to compensate for reduced uptake of parafoveal information from yet-to-be fixated words. However, the empirical evidence for these assumptions is equivocal. This study investigated the depth of older readers’ parafoveal processing as indexed by sensitivity to the contextual plausibility of parafoveal words in both neutral and highly constraining sentence contexts. The eye movements of 65 cognitively intact older adults (61-87 years) were compared with data previously collected from young adults in two sentence reading experiments in which critical target words were replaced by valid, plausible, related, or implausible previews until the reader fixated on the target word location. Older and younger adults showed equivalent plausibility preview benefits on first-pass reading measures of both predictable and unpredictable words. However, older readers did not show the benefit of preview orthographic relatedness that was observed in young adults, and showed significantly attenuated preview validity effects. Taken together, the data suggest that older readers are specifically impaired in the integration of parafoveal and foveal information but do not show deficits in the depth of parafoveal processing. The implications for understanding the effects of aging on reading are discussed.

What causes lingering misinterpretations of garden-path sentences: Incorrect syntactic representations or fallible memory processes?

A key question in research on sentence processing concerns how sentences that have been misanalyzed are reinterpreted, and to what extent the parser’s attempts at revision are successful. Past work has shown that misinterpretations associated with a syntactic misparse linger even after the entire sentence has been processed (Christianson, Hollingworth, Halliwell, & Ferreira, 2001; Slattery, Sturt, Christianson, Yoshida and Ferreira, 2013). In two reading experiments, we sought to evaluate the level of representation that is responsible for misinterpretations of garden-path sentences. We combined reading measures with an offline comprehension task, which enabled us to conditionalize reading time analyses on correct versus incorrect question-answering performance. Our results suggest that reanalysis does not always result in a correct interpretation, either because the final interpretation does not always reflect the global structure or because reanalysis processes result in the creation of licit local trees but fail to generate a complete global parse for the entire sentence.

Rapid automatized naming (RAN) as a kindergarten predictor of future reading: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Rapid automatized naming (RAN) tasks have been shown to be a strong correlate of reading abilities. RAN also predicts future reading across different ages, ability levels, and languages, and is often used in literacy screening. Thus, understanding the specific relations between early RAN and later reading difficulties is important. In this systematic review and meta-analysis (with N = 68 samples; k = 373 effect sizes; n = 10,513 participants), we test the extent to which measures of RAN assessed before grade school predict later reading performance in English-speaking children. We also test whether characteristics of the RAN tasks, reading measures, or sample demographics moderate this relationship. We found that kindergarten/preschool RAN is correlated with grade-school reading at r = -.38, similar in magnitude to previous meta-analyses that included various ages and languages. We found that alphanumeric RAN tasks are particularly strongly related to future reading, as compared with non-alphanumeric tasks (p = .01) but that other features of the RAN task, such as the number of items, do not alter its predictive significance. RAN predicts all types of reading measures, but more strongly predicts real word than nonword reading (p < .001). These results support a shared cognitive resource model in which the similarity between RAN and reading tasks accounts for their correlation. We provide practical guidelines based on these data for early screening for reading difficulties and dyslexia.

More Than Words: Anxiety, Self-Esteem and Behavioral Problems in Children and Adolescents With Dyslexia

This study focused on psycho-affective and behavioral problems in children and adolescents with dyslexia. It aims to define clinical psycho-affective and behavioral profiles of dyslexia beyond those found in existing descriptions of the cognitive, neural, and behavioral correlates. The study focused specifically on the understudied population of native Italian-speaking students. Characteristics of anxiety and self-esteem, as psycho-affective factors, and a variety of associated behavioral problems were studied in a sample of children and adolescents with dyslexia ( n = 22) and compared to those of a group without learning disabilities ( n = 25). The findings suggest the group of participants diagnosed with dyslexia exhibited psycho-affective symptoms, especially anxiety and low self-esteem in social, and academic situations more frequently than the control group. These problems were related to reading measures. More research is needed to determine how they are related and their interaction. Overall, these findings are useful in clarifying the profile of psycho-affective symptoms in the development of academic difficulties in children and adolescents with dyslexia. In some cases, school personnel focus their interventions only on the academic difficulties and not the psycho-affective or behavioral problems. These findings could have implications regarding intervention for this population.

WORKING MEMORY CAPACITY AND L2 READING

The relationship between working memory (WM) and second-language (L2) reading has been extensively examined, with mixed results. Our meta-analysis models the potential impact of underresearched variables considered to moderate this relationship. Results from 74 studies (228 correlations) showed a significant, small relationship between WM and L2 reading (r = .300). Of the eight moderators examined, the WM–L2 reading relationship differed between studies using first-language (L1) and L2 WM tasks and between studies reporting and not reporting WM task reliability. Methodological features of reading comprehension measures or learners’ proficiency did not moderate the relationship. These results suggest that measurement practices of WM—rather than L2 reading measures or learner characteristics—matter in understanding the WM–L2 reading relationship. Implications and future directions are discussed.

To Name or Not to Name: Eye Movements and Semantic Processing in RAN and Reading

This study examined the well-established relationship between rapid naming and reading. Rapid automatized naming (RAN) has long been demonstrated as a strong predictor of reading abilities. Despite extensive research spanning over 4 decades, the underlying mechanisms of these causes remain a subject of inquiry. The current study investigated the role of eye movements and semantic processing in defining the RAN-reading relationship. The participants in this study were 42 English-speaking undergraduate students at a British university. The materials included a word reading task, two conventional RAN tasks (object and digit), and two RAN-like categorization tasks (object and digit). The results obtained suggested the interdependence between rapid naming and semantic processing. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that oculomotor control remains an integral part of variability in RAN and reading performance. Taken together, our results suggest that RAN and reading measures are correlated because both require rapid and accurate retrieval of phonological representations, semantic properties of visual stimuli, and stable co-ordination of eye movements.

Phonology-independent general orthographic knowledge

While reading is among the most important and well-researched topics of developmental psychology, sublexical regularities and how these regularities relate to reading skills have attracted less interest so far. This study tested general orthographic knowledge (GOK) using an indirect reaction time (RT)-based task, in which participants had to detect letters appearing within frequent and infrequent letter clusters. The aim of the method was to minimise the roles of phonological activation and metalinguistic decision. Three different age-groups of German-speaking individuals were tested: first graders ( N = 60), third graders ( N = 68), and adults ( N = 44). Orthographic regularity affected RTs in all three groups, with significantly lower RTs for frequent than for infrequent clusters. The indirect measure of GOK did not show an association with reading measures in first graders and adults, but in the case of third graders it explained variance over and above age and phonological skills. This study provides evidence for phonology-independent GOK, at least in third graders.

Multimodal brain features at preschool age and the relationship with pre-reading measures one year later: an exploratory study

Pre-reading language skills develop rapidly in early childhood and are related to brain structure and function in young children prior to formal education. However, the early neurobiological development that support these skills is not well understood and has not been assessed longitudinally using multiple imaging approaches. Here we acquired anatomical, diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and resting state functional MRI (rs-fMRI) from 35 children at 3.5 years of age. Children were assessed for pre-reading abilities using the NEPSY-II subtests one year later (4.5 years). We applied a data-driven linked independent component analysis to explore the shared co-variation of grey and white matter measures. Two sources of structural variation at 3.5 years of age demonstrated a weak relationship with Speeded Naming scores at 4.5 years of age. The first imaging component involved volumetric variability in reading-related cortical regions alongside microstructural features of the superior longitudinal fasciculus. The second component was dominated by cortical volumetric variations within the cerebellum and visual association area. In a subset of children with rs-fMRI data, we evaluated the inter-network functional connectivity of the left-lateralized fronto-parietal language (FPL) network and its relationship with pre-reading measures. Higher functional connectivity between the FPL functional network and the default mode and visual networks at 3.5 years predicted better Phonological Processing scores at 4.5 years. Together, these results suggest that the integration of functional networks, as well as the co-development of white and grey matter brain structures in early childhood, may support the emergence of pre-reading measures in preschool children.

The influence of vitamin-C intake on blood glucose measurements in COVID-19 pandemic

Introduction: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is declared as pandemic by the World Health Orgnazation (WHO) on March 2020. One of the heavily utilized measures during this pandemic is vitamin C (aka ascorbic acid). Unfortunately, vitamin C has been associated with glucose measurement interference and thus this study highlights the elevated levels of blood glucose correlated with the presence of vitamin C interference. Methodology: Thirty samples were selected randomly and the blood glucose were measured prior and post the addition of spiked standard concentrations of vitamin C. The interference of vitamin C with glucose readings in COVID-19 pandemic were evaluated and observed employing the Auto Chemistry Analyzer machine. Results: The addition of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) standards (spikes) into the isolated samples shows a correlated increment in the reading measures. Thereafter, the increments of Random Blood Sugar (RBS) readings after being spiked with the vitamin C standards shows a logarithmic correlation with good interesting R-squared (R2 = 0.9921). Conclusions: The authors find that the presence of vitamin C in blood actively and significantly alters the glucose level readings especially with the highly consumption of vitamin C during the COVID-19 pandemic.