A meta-analysis of reading-level match dyslexia studies in consistent alphabetic orthographies Abstract We provide a meta-analytic review of all group-comparison studies that used reading-level match design, were conducted in highly consistent European orthographies, included children with dyslexia younger than 13 years of age as participants, and included measures of one or more of the potential causes of dyslexia. We identified 21 studies meeting these criteria that examined one or more of phonological awareness, rapid naming, verbal short-term memory, or auditory temporal processing. A random effects model analysis showed first that the groups were matched imperfectly and they differed significantly in word reading measures not used for matching. Second, there were no significant differences between the individuals with dyslexia and their reading-level-matched controls in rapid naming, phonological memory, and auditory temporal processing. Finally, the analyses for phonological awareness showed a significant effect for comparisons that involved manipulating phonemes but not for tasks that involved manipulating syllables. The results are compatible with phonological deficit theories of dyslexia, but this conclusion is qualified by observed differences in reading skills and sample selection concerns.

Morphological processing influences on dyslexia in Greek-speaking children Abstract The study explored the inflectional morphological awareness of Greek-speaking children with dyslexia in grade 3. The sample consisted of 24 dyslexic children and 32 chronological age-matched typically developing readers. All participants completed two oral experimental tasks of inflectional morphological awareness (i.e., verb inflections and noun-adjective inflections). The noun-adjective inflection task assessed children’s ability to produce the plural of articles, adjectives, and nouns in the context of a sentence. The verb inflection task required children to change the tense of the verb in a sentence. Furthermore, phonological awareness and oral receptive vocabulary were assessed. Greek-speaking children with dyslexia faced difficulties in both inflectional tasks and in receptive vocabulary. They appeared to have greater difficulty in elicitation of non-past tense from past tense. Binary logistic regression targeted at understanding whether dyslexia can be predicted based on phonological and non-phonological oral language skills revealed that phonological awareness had a significant effect on distinguishing dyslexics from typically developing readers. Overall, our findings lead us to suggest that in an alphabetic language with a shallow orthographic system and rich morphology, children with dyslexia appear to have impaired inflectional morphological awareness and impaired vocabulary in comparison to their peers. Moreover, these results suggest the significance of teaching morphological skills in improving reading skills. However, further research is needed to substantiate these findings.

Exploring the use of network meta-analysis in education: examining the correlation between ORF and text complexity measures Abstract Calls for empirical investigations of the Common Core standards (CCSSs) for English Language Arts have been widespread, particularly in the area of text complexity in the primary grades (e.g., Hiebert & Mesmer Educational Research, 42(1), 44–51, 2013). The CCSSs mention that qualitative methods (such as Fountas and Pinnell) and quantitative methods (such as Lexiles) can be used to gauge text complexity (CCSS Initiative, 2010). However, researchers have questioned the validity of these tools for several decades (e.g., Hiebert & Pearson, 2010). In an effort to establish criterion validity of these tools, individual studies have compared how well they correlate with actual student reading performance measures, most commonly reading comprehension and/or oral-reading fluency (ORF). ORF is a key aspect of reading success and as such is often used for progress monitoring purposes. However, to date, studies have not been able to evaluate different text complexity tools and relation to reading outcomes across studies. This is challenging because the pair-wise meta-analytic model is not able to synthesize several independent variables that differ both within and across studies. Therefore, it is unable to answer pressing research questions in education, such as, which text complexity tool is most correlated with student ORF (and, thus, a good measure of text difficulty)? This question is timely given that the Common Core State Standards explicitly mention various text complexity tools; yet, the validity of such tools has been repeatedly questioned by researchers. This article provides preliminary evidence to answer that question using an approach borrowed from the field of medicine—Network Meta-Analysis (NMA; Lumley Statistics in Medicine, 21, 2313–2324, 2002). A systematic search yielded 5 studies using 19 different text complexity tools with ORF as the reading outcome measured. Both a frequentist and Bayesian NMA were conducted to pool the correlations of a given text complexity tool with students’ ORF. While the results differed slightly across the two approaches, there is preliminary evidence in support of the hypothesis that text complexity tools which incorporate more fine-grained sub-lexical variables were more strongly correlated with student outcomes. While the results of this example cannot be generalized due to the low sample size, this article shows how NMA is a promising new analytic tool for synthesizing educational research.

Music-related abilities among readers with dyslexia Abstract Research suggests that a central difficulty in dyslexia may be impaired rapid temporal processing. Good temporal processing is also needed for musical perception, which relies on the ability to detect rapid changes. Our study is the first to measure the perception of adults with and without dyslexia on all three dimensions of music (rhythm, pitch, and spectrum), as well as their capacity for auditory imagery and detection of slow changes, while controlling for working memory. Participants were undergraduate students, aged 20–35 years: 26 readers with dyslexia and 30 typical readers. Participants completed a battery of tests measuring aptitude for recognizing the similarity/difference in tone pitch or rhythm, spectral resolution, vividness/control of auditory imagination, the ability to detect slow changes in auditory stimuli, and working memory. As expected, readers with dyslexia showed poorer performance in pitch and rhythm than controls, but outperformed them in spectral perception. The data for each test was analyzed separately while controlling for the letter-number sequencing score. No differences between groups were found in slow-change detection or auditory imagery. Our results demonstrated that rapid temporal processing appears to be the main difficulty of readers with dyslexia, who demonstrated poorer performance when stimuli were presented quickly rather than slowly and better performance on a task when no temporal component was involved. These findings underscore the need for further study of temporal processing in readers with dyslexia. Remediation of temporal processing deficits may unmask the preserved or even superior abilities of people with dyslexia, leading to enhanced ability in all areas that utilize the temporal component.

Validation of curriculum-based reading passages and comparison of college students with and without dyslexia or ADHD Abstract Although reading is an essential skill for college success, little is known about how college students with and without disabilities read within their actual college curriculum. In the present article, we report on two studies addressing this issue. Within study 1, we developed and validated curriculum-based oral reading fluency measures using a sample of college students without disabilities (N = 125). In study 2, we administered the curriculum-based measures to four groups (each with n = 25): college students without disabilities, college students with dyslexia, college students with ADHD, and a clinical control group. Study 1 results indicated that the curriculum-based measures demonstrated good reliability and criterion validity. Results from study 2 indicated that college students with dyslexia were substantially slower readers than all groups without dyslexia (ds > 1.8). The curriculum-based measures demonstrated high accuracy in classifying participants with dyslexia and with impaired oral reading fluency (area under the curve > .94). Implications for incorporating curriculum-based measures in postsecondary settings are discussed.

Post-treatment reading development in children with dyslexia: the challenge remains Abstract The goal of this study was to examine the post-treatment development of word and pseudoword accuracy and fluency and its cognitive and linguistic predictors in Dutch children with dyslexia compared with typical readers in the upper primary grades. Word and pseudoword reading accuracy and fluency were assessed at the start and end of grade 5 and at the end of grade 6. Phonological awareness, rapid naming, verbal short-term memory, vocabulary, and visual attention span were assessed at the start of grade 5. Repeated measures ANOVAs revealed that children with dyslexia were less accurate than typical readers and showed very little improvements in accuracy over time. They were also less fluent and showed less growth in reading fluency than typical readers. The children with dyslexia did improve more in word reading fluency than in pseudoword reading fluency over time. Visual attention span and phonological awareness predicted reading accuracy development in typical readers, while rapid naming predicted individual differences in reading fluency in children with dyslexia. It can be concluded that in the upper grades, children with dyslexia not only struggled with fluent reading, but they also still struggled with accurate reading in a relatively transparent orthography like Dutch, even after they had received a reading intervention to remediate their reading difficulties.

E-book reading hinders aspects of long-text comprehension for adults with dyslexia Abstract Developmental dyslexia is a long-lasting reading deficit that persists into adulthood. In spite of many difficulties, some adults with dyslexia reach levels of reading comprehension similar to those of unimpaired readers and successfully study at university. While digital technologies offer many potential tools to facilitate reading, there are differences between printed books and e-books, particularly regarding the interaction between the reader and the text (paratextual cues). This study used long-text reading to investigate (1) different aspects of reading comprehension skills (literal and inferential processes, location of events within a story, and reconstruction of the plot) among university students with dyslexia and (2) the impact of e-book reading on reading comprehension in this population. Thirty adults with dyslexia and 30 matched skilled readers read the same text presented from a printed book and an e-book (Amazon Kindle). Questions were open-ended and both questions and answers used oral format. Results showed that with the printed book, dyslexic adults performed similarly to skilled readers in both literal and inferential reading comprehension tasks. Moreover, they performed at the same level or higher than skilled readers in tasks assessing spatiotemporal aspects of reading (localization of events and plot reconstruction). Conversely, with the e-book reader, the dyslexic adults were outperformed by skilled readers both in literal and spatiotemporal comprehension tasks. These results suggest that reading from an e-book hinders some aspects of reading comprehension for adults with dyslexia. However, when reading a printed book without time pressure, university students with dyslexia performed as well as, or better than, non-impaired readers on some measures of reading comprehension. Therefore, digital reading devices might not always be advantageous to them.

Development of orthographic representations in Spanish children with dyslexia: the influence of previous semantic and phonological knowledge Abstract In transparent orthographic systems, the main characteristic of developmental dyslexia is poor reading fluency. Several studies have reported that children with dyslexia have difficulties forming orthographic representations of words, which hampers good reading fluency. This study aimed at evaluating whether the semantic–phonological training prior to word reading could facilitate the formation of orthographic representations and leading an improvement in reading fluency. Twenty-four native Spanish-speaking children with developmental dyslexia carried out two different reading tasks. In one of them, participants previously received semantic and phonological information about stimuli whereas in the other task no previous information was provided. Eight different unfamiliar words (four short and four long) were used in each reading task and the reduction of the length effect across reading blocks was taken as a formation index of new orthographic representations. Results showed low accuracy, slow speed reading, and difficulties in developing orthographic representations despite of repeated reading, probably due to the instability in decoding processes. However, the previous phonological and semantic training had a facilitator effect in the formation of orthographic representations, as indicated by the decrease in the length effect.

Are predictors of reading impairment in isolated cleft similar to those in idiopathic dyslexia? Abstract Children with isolated cleft of the lip and/or palate (iCL/P) are at increased risk for reading impairment. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of early risk factors (hearing, speech, and early literacy) on reading performance compared to unaffected participants with average (uAR) and impaired (uIR) reading. Reading achievement and early literacy skills were evaluated across three groups (27 iCL/P, 32 uAR, and 33 uIR). All participants were males, ages 8–11 years old. Those with history of head trauma/injury or major medical/mental health conditions were excluded. Group differences in achievement and early literacy skills were evaluated with ANCOVAs. Participants with impaired reading achievement (at or below 25th Percentile) were identified. Medical record reviews for participates with iCL/P were conducted and audiology and speech ratings recorded. Correlations were calculated between achievement, early literacy, hearing, and speech. Participants with iCL/P had significantly elevated risk for reading impairment (37%); this risk differed by cleft type (0% iCL, 55% iCLP, and 60% iCP). Achievement for participants with iCP was similar to the uIR group. Early literacy risk resulted in lower achievement scores for both iCL/P and unaffected participants. History of inadequate hearing and speech did not significantly impact early literacy or achievement measures. There is a high risk of reading impairment for children with iCL/P—highest for those with iCLP and iCP. Early literacy predictors of reading outcome are similar for iCL/P and idiopathic dyslexia. Current screening and intervention methods are supported.

Distinct effects of visual and auditory temporal processing training on reading and reading-related abilities in Chinese children with dyslexia Abstract This study aimed to examine the effects of temporal processing training on the reading abilities of Chinese children with dyslexia. In total, 69 Chinese children with dyslexia in grades three through six were recruited in Taiwan. The children were divided into the following three equal groups: (1) auditory temporal processing training group, (2) visual temporal processing training group, and (3) control group with no specific training. The participants in both training groups received instruction with identical durations (30–40 min), intensities (12 times in total), and frequencies (three to four times per week). The participants in the control group were asked to independently surf some specified websites using devices similar to those used by the two experimental groups for an identical duration, intensity, and frequency. Our results indicated that the two groups who received temporal processing training exhibited significant correlations among Chinese character reading, rapid naming, and corresponding reading-related abilities, while visual temporal processing served as a significant predictor of Chinese character reading ability even if all background data, reading-related abilities, and auditory temporal processing were introduced first. Additionally, significant interactions were found between the Groups and Tested sessions in all the measures, except for phonological awareness, confirming the distinct effects of different temporal processing on most measures involved in this study. Further simple main effects revealed that only those who received the visual temporal processing training gained benefits in the corresponding reading-related ability (i.e., orthographic knowledge) and far-transfer to Chinese character reading.