International Perspectives on Spelling and Writing in Different Orthographies: Introduction to the Special Series

This article serves as an introduction to the special issue on spelling and writing in different orthographies. Most studies and theoretical models of writing are based on the English language, and it is generally assumed that what is true for English is also true for other languages. Further, there are more studies on reading compared to studies of writing and spelling. Considering that 80% of the world’s population speaks a language other than English, we need more studies on writing and spelling in languages other than English. With this intention, we are presenting 6 papers on writing and spelling in different languages of different orthographic depth, from highly transparent orthographies like Spanish and Italian to highly opaque orthography like Cantonese.

Capturing the Nature of the Spelling Errors in Developmental Language Disorder: A Scoping Review

Purpose This scoping review aims to identify and analyze the nature of the spelling errors produced by children with developmental language disorder (DLD) across different orthographies. Building on a previous meta-analysis identifying the extent of the spelling difficulties of children with DLD, the review extends our understanding of the nature of the spelling errors produced by children with DLD. Three questions are addressed: Do spelling difficulties in children with DLD stem from weak phonological, orthographic, or morphological representations? What are the patterns of spelling performance in DLD depending on orthographic depth? Do comorbid difficulties with DLD impact spelling? Method The scoping review followed the five phases outlined by Arksey and O'Malley (2005) and extended by Levac et al. (2010) : (a) specifying the research question; (b) identifying relevant studies; (c) selecting studies; (d) charting the data; and (e) collating, summarizing, and reporting the results. Results Eighteen studies that provided a qualitative description of the nature of spelling errors produced by children and adolescents with DLD were identified. Spelling performance was examined in relation to control groups that were matched on age, on language features (language, spelling, or reading age), or on co-occurring difficulties. Conclusions This review article highlights the key elements that need to be considered when practitioners examine spelling difficulties and provides benchmarks for assessment in a range of alphabetic languages for school-age children. The qualitative analyses indicated that when practitioners evaluate spelling performance in children or adolescents with DLD, three factors should be considered: phonological representations, morphological awareness, and reading skills.

Order among chaos: Cross-linguistic differences and developmental trajectories in pseudoword reading aloud using pronunciation Entropy

In this work we propose the use of Entropy to measure variability in pronunciations in pseudowords reading aloud: pseudowords where participants give many different pronunciations receive higher Entropy values. Monolingual adults, monolingual children, and bilingual children proficient in different European languages varying in orthographic depth were tested. We predicted that Entropy values will increase with increasing orthographic depth. Moreover, higher Entropy was expected for younger than older children, as reading experience improves the knowledge of grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs). We also tested if interference from a second language would lead to higher Entropy. Results show that orthographic depth affects Entropy, but only when the items are not strictly matched across languages. We also found that Entropy decreases across age, suggesting that GPC knowledge becomes refined throughout grades 2-4. We found no differences between bilingual and monolingual children. Our results indicate that item characteristics play a fundamental role in pseudoword pronunciation variability, that reading experience is associated with reduced variability in responses, and that in bilinguals’ knowledge of a second orthography does not seem to interfere with pseudoword reading aloud.

Orthographic depth and developmental dyslexia: a meta-analytic study

Cross-cultural studies have suggested that reading deficits in developmental dyslexia (DD) can be moderated by orthographic depth. To further explore this issue and assess the moderating role of orthographic depth in the developmental cognitive trajectories of dyslexic and typical readers, we systematically reviewed 113 studies on DD that were published from 2013 to 2018 and selected 79 in which participants received an official DD diagnosis. Each study was classified according to orthographic depth (deep vs. shallow) and participant age (children vs. adults). We assessed the difference between DD and control groups’ performance in reading tasks and in a wide range of cognitive domains associated with reading (phonological awareness (PA), rapid automatized naming (RAN), short-term working memory (WM), and nonverbal reasoning), including age and orthographies as moderators. We found an age-by-orthography interaction effect in word reading accuracy and a significant effect of age in pseudoword reading accuracy, but we found no effect of age and orthographic depth on the fluency parameters. These results suggest that reading speed is a reliable index for discriminating between DD and control groups across European orthographies from childhood to adulthood. A similar pattern of results emerged for PA, RAN, and short-term/WM. Our findings are discussed in relation to their impact on clinical practice while considering the orthographic depth and developmental level.

What research can tell us about the interaction between dyslexia and bilingualism

Dyslexia is a reading difficulty of neurological basis which is often associated to a deficit at the phonological level of reading – but not restricted to it. In this review, we sought to identify relevant research conducted on the interaction between dyslexia and bilingualism in the last twenty years. For this purpose, eleven studies were selected from CAPES Journals Portal. Results of these studies reached contrasting conclusions, some indicating a continuum of dyslexic traces across the languages, while others emphasized the role of interacting factors such as orthographic depth and language granularity modulating the manifestations of dyslexia in each language. The implications of these findings for education are also discussed.

Order among Chaos: cross-linguistic differences and developmental trajectories in pseudoword reading aloud using pronunciation Entropy

In this work we propose the use of Entropy as a new way to measure variability in pronunciations in pseudowords reading aloud: pseudowords where participants give many different pronunciations receive higher Entropy values. Monolingual adults, monolingual children, and bilingual children proficient in different European languages varying in orthographic depth were tested. We predicted that Entropy values will increase with increasing orthographic depth. Moreover, higher Entropy was expected for younger than older children, as reading experience improves the knowledge of grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs). We also tested if interference from a second language would lead to higher Entropy. Results show that orthographic depth affects Entropy, but only when the items are not strictly matched across languages. We also found that Entropy decreases across age, suggesting that GPC knowledge becomes refined throughout Grades 2-4. We found no differences between bilingual and monolingual children. Our results indicate that item characteristics play a fundamental role in pseudoword pronunciation variability, that reading experience is associated with reduced variability in responses, and that in bilinguals' knowledge of a second orthography does not seem to interfere with pseudoword reading aloud.

Neurofunctional mechanisms underlying audiovisual integration of characters and pinyin in Chinese children

Efficient integration of grapheme and phoneme is crucial for reading development in alphabetic languages, and superior temporal cortex (STC) has been demonstrated to be the most critical region for this process. To determine whether a similar neural mechanism underlies such processing in non-alphabetic languages, and to explore its relationship with reading, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging study in typically developing Chinese children. Highly frequent pictographic characters and pinyin, a transparent alphabetic coding system that assists individuals to learn the pronunciation of new characters were investigated. In support of the orthographic depth hypothesis developed in alphabetic languages, reverse congruency effect (i.e., higher activation in incongruent condition compared to congruent condition) was identified in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and bilateral STC for character (deep orthography) conditions. Furthermore, correlation analysis revealed that the congruency contrast in the left IFG was associated with proficiency in reading comprehension and morphological awareness, suggesting reading-related semantic access during the implicit integration of multisensory information regarding characters. For pinyin (shallow orthography) conditions, while no regions showed a significant congruency effect at the group level in either direction, the congruency contrast in the left superior temporal gyrus was positively correlated with oral reading performance. This observation is consistent with findings in transparent scripts on reading disorders. Taken together, these results support and generalize the orthographic depth hypothesis to a logographic language, highlight the role of the left IFG in character-syllable integration, and underscore the role pinyin could play in developing fluent reading in Chinese children.HighlightsThe left IFG and bilateral STC are involved in audiovisual integration of characters.The congruency contrast in the left IFG in response to characters corresponds to semantic access.The congruency contrast in the left STG in response to pinyin is correlated with print-to-sound mapping.These findings support the orthographic depth hypothesis in a nonalphabetic language.The results imply a close link between pinyin and Chinese reading acquisition.

Reading comprehension across languages

Orthographic depth, the degree of spelling-to-sound consistency in a language, has been hypothesized to affect the ease with which children learn to read words. However, the relationship between orthographic depth and reading comprehension is less well understood. In this study, focusing on countries in which two international assessments (PISA and PIRLS) were given in two or more languages, we examine data from elementary and high-school readers of Finnish, Swedish, Italian, German, Dutch, French and English). Findings suggest that that there may be some trade-offs between shallow and deep orthographies in terms of the specific ways that they map onto the phonological and deep meaning representations required for cognitive processing during an activity such as comprehension. These trade-offs serve to differentially support or inhibit readers depending on where they are situated on the achievement continuum.

Unpredictability and complexity of print-to-speech correspondences increase reliance on lexical processes: more evidence for the orthographic depth hypothesis

The Orthographic Depth Hypothesis [Katz, L., & Frost, R. (1992). The reading process is different for different orthographies: The orthographic depth hypothesis. In R. Frost & L. Katz (Eds.), Orthography, phonology, morphology, and meaning (pp. 67–84). Amsterdam: Elsevier Science] proposes cross-linguistic differences in the involvement of lexical processing during reading. In orthographies with complex, inconsistent, and/or incomplete sublexical correspondences, decoding is more difficult and therefore slower. This gives more time to the lexical route to retrieve information, and leads to a greater ratio of lexical processing. We test whether this mechanism applies both for words with inconsistent (in English) and for words with complex (in French) correspondences. As complex correspondences are sufficient to derive a correct pronunciation, an increase in lexical processing may not occur. In a reading-aloud task, we used the frequency effect to measure lexical processing. The data showed stronger involvement of lexical processing for inconsistent compared to consistent words, and for complex compared to simple words. The results confirm that Katz and Frost’s proposed mechanism applies to different sources of orthographic depth.