Reading skills andchallenged phoneme perception

Cecile Kuijpers, Louis ten Bosch, Renske Schilte

Radboud Universiteit NijmegenPedagogische Wetenschappen en OnderwijskundeCLST/Dept Linguistics

1

Introduction

• Reading disability, or dyslexia, is the most common learning disability

• Adult dyslexics- read more slowly than non-dyslexics- problems for nonsense word reading (non-lexical, phonological decoding) - problems at spelling

• Dyslexia and IQ are not related

2

Introduction

• Dyslexia (broad term): a learning disability that impairs a person's fluency in being able to read- can manifest itself as a difficulty with phonological awareness, phonological

decoding, orthographic coding, auditory short-term memory, or rapid naming.

• Dyslexia is separate and distinct from reading difficulties resulting from other causes:- non-neurological deficiency with vision or hearing- poor or inadequate reading instruction

• Estimated 5 to 10 percent of the population

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Aim of this study

• To investigate

whether difficulty to identify phonemes in speech is related to difficulty to acquire reading skills

whether phonological representations are deficient

4

METHOD

• 114 students• Grade 4 / 5 / 6 (9- to 12-y-old)• 55 male, 59 female• 100% letter knowledge

• School results and timed reading tests• One-Minute-test (words), de Klepel (pseudowords)• Severe reading problem, reading problem, normal readers,

good readers

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Test Mean SSEMT 3,63 ss < 7

16severe

problemKlepel 4,81 ss < 7EMT 5,28 ss <7

22problem

Klepel 7,71 ss ≥ 7EMT 7,71 ss ≥ 7Klepel 5,28 ss <7EMT 10,92 ss ≥ 7

60 normalKlepel 11,00 ss ≥ 7EMT ss ≥12 16 goodKlepel ss ≥12

Task• Phoneme identification: two-alternatives forced choice

- combined with grapheme presentation

• 4 vowels (a,o,e,u), 16 consonants (p,t,k,b,d,f,s,v,z,w,r,l,j,w,m,n)• 64 auditory stimuli VCV (e.g. /aba/, /utu/, /efe/, /ono/)• Speech-shaped noise (Stuart Rosen): 3 conditions

a. no noise (>80 dB SNR) b. noise (6 dB SNR) c. noise (3 dB SNR)

• Trained speaker

• Close pair (e.g. b-p) or distant pair (e.g. b-r)• Close: 1.04 artic. features vs. distant: 3.26 artic. features

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experiment msempty screen 1000+ beep 150+ silence 400+ auditory stimulus 1000response 2000+ silence 500total 5050

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Graphemes(target - close/distant alternative) Keyboard [c] [m]

Design (each subject)

• 6 blocks of 30 random stimuli (180 trials)

• equal number of left–right position target letter

• equal number of close and distant alternatives

• equal number of stimuli with noise level 0,1,2

• two training sessions (feedback correct/incorrect)

f s

8

f s

9

f s

10

k j

11

k j

12

k j

13

ACCURACY RT

N. S

accu

racy

(%

)

Accuracy RT

main effect p<.001 main effect p<.001

0.97-0.91-0.87 686-744-

764

NOISE

RT

(ms)

ACCURACY RT

N. S

accu

racy

(%

)

Accuracy RT

main effect p<.001 main effect p<.001

0. 9 4 - 0.89 7 2 5 - 739

Alternative (distant-close)

RT

(ms)

RT (

ms)

ACCURACYInteraction Noise * Alternative

Accuracy RT

Accu

racy

(%

)

Conclusions

• Noise hampers correct identification- in noise slower and less accurate response, for all groups- poor readers suffer most (accuracy)

• More errors in case of close alternatives as compared to distant- increases with noise- no difference between groups

• Children with (severe) reading problems are slower in their response than normal and good (independent of noise level)

• Some weaknesses:- 6-graders were primarily normal

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ACCURACY RT

N. S

READING GROUP

Accuracy RT

n.s. p<.010.94-0.92-0.91-0.90 822-814-689-692