Recent findings on dyslexics’ language learning

G. Andreou, Professor in Linguistics, andreou@uth.gr

Department of Special Education, University of Thessaly, Greece

Introduction Cross-cultural communication is important and especially for those who speak minor languages to be able to communicate in one or two of the major languages in the world. However, there are groups of people such as dyslexics, who display difficulties in accessing multilingualism and they either lag behind their peers or do not learn and sometimes do not even try to learn a foreign language at all. This presentation attempts to show: a) the profile of the dyslexic child across languages (with a focus on Greek, English, French) b) the role of morphological and syntactical awareness in dyslexia c) the relationship between native (L1) and foreign (L2) language competence skills d) research findings concerning the Greek language e) our research findings in dyslexics’ writing in Greek (L1) and English (L2) f) research findings concerning the French language g) our recent research on the difficulties in the morphology and syntax that Greek dyslexic 5th and 6th grade students have in learning French as a foreign language as compared to non dyslexic students of the same age.

Why French as an L2? Why morphology and syntax? • Most research findings concerning learning

difficulties/dyslexia concern the English language either as native (L1) or foreign (L2)

• Most research studies examine phonological skills • French is mostly studied as a native language in

dyslexics • No study has examined French as a foreign language by

dyslexics with Greek as an L1

Research on dyslexia/learning-reading difficulties in French and English during the last three years (2012,13, 14)

French (as an L2): Sparks, R., L., Patton, J., & Ganschow, L. (2012). Profiles of more and less successful L2 learners: A cluster analysis study. Learning and Individual Differences 22 463–472.

French (as an L1): 1) Chobert, J., Francois, C., Habib, M. & Besson, M. (2012). Deficit in the preattentive processing of syllabic duration and VOT in children with dyslexia. Neuropsychologia 50, 2044–2055.

2) Zorzi, Z., Barbiero, C., Facoetti, A., Lonciari, I., Carrozzi, M., Montico, M., Brava, L., George, F., Pech-Georgel, C. & Ziegler, J. C. (2012). Extra-large letter spacing improves reading in dyslexia. PNAS 109, 28, 11455–11459.

3) Casalis, S., Leuwers, C., & Hilton, H. (2013). Syntactic Comprehension in Reading and Listening: A Study With French Children With Dyslexia. Journal of Learning Disabilities XX(X) 1–10.

4) Doignon-Camus, N., Seigneuric, A., Perrier, E., Sisti, A. & Zagar, D. (2013). Evidence for a preserved sensitivity to orthographic redundancy and an impaired access to phonological syllables in French developmental dyslexics. Ann. of Dyslexia 63:117–132.

5) Lallier, M., Donnadieu, S. & Valdois, S. (2013). Developmental dyslexia: exploring how much phonological and visual attention span disorders are linked to simultaneous auditory processing deficits. Ann. of Dyslexia 63:97–116.

6) Lete, B., & Fayol, M. (2013). Substituted-letter and transposed-letter effects in a masked priming paradigm with French developing readers and dyslexics. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 114 47–62.

7) Maοonchi-Pino, N., Taki, Y., Yokoyama, S., Magnan, A., Takahashi, K., Hashizume, H., Ecalle, J. & Kawashima, R. (2013). Is the phonological deficit in developmental dyslexia related to impaired phonological representations and to universal phonological grammar? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 115 53–73.

8) Piquard-Kipffer, A. & Sprenger-Charolles, L. (2013). Early predictors of future reading skills: A follow-up of French-speaking children from the beginning of kindergarten to the end of the second grade (age 5 to 8). Topics in Cognitive Psychology, 113, 491-521.

9) Quemart, P. & Casalis, S. (2013). Visual processing of derivational morphology in children with developmental dyslexia: Insights from masked priming. Applied Psycholinguistics, 1-32.

10) Trecy, M. P., Steve, M. & Martine P. (2013). Impaired short-term memory for order in adults with dyslexia. Research in Developmental Disabilities 34 2211–2223.

11) Lallier, M., Valdois S., Lassus-Sangosse, D., Prado, C., & Kandel, S. (2014). Impact of orthographic transparency on typical and atypical reading development: Evidence in French-Spanish bilingual children. Research in Developmental Disabilities 35 1177–1190.

12) Pattamadilok, C., Nelis, A. & Kolinsky, R. (2014). How does reading performance modulate the impact of orthographic knowledge on speech processing? A comparison of normal readers and dyslexic adults. Ann. of Dyslexia 64:57–76.

13) Talli, I., Sprenger-Charolles, L. & Stavrakaki, S. (2014). Is there an overlap between Specific Language Impairment and Developmental Dyslexia? New insights from French. In Language Acquisition and Language Disorders Eds. John Benjamins.

14) Valdois, S., Peyrin, C., Lassus-Sangosse, D., Lallier, M., Demonet, J-F., & Kandel, S. (2014). Dyslexia in a French-Spanish bilingual girl: Behavioural and neural modulations following a visual attention span intervention. Cortex 53, 120-145.

15) Zoubrinetzky R, Bielle F, Valdois S. (2014). New Insights on Developmental Dyslexia Subtypes: Heterogeneity of Mixed Reading Profiles. PLoS ONE 9(6): e99337.

English (as an L3): Abu-Rabia, S., & Shakkour, W. (2014). Cognitive Retroactive Transfer (CRT) of Language Skills among Trilingual Arabic-Hebrew and English Learners. Open Journal of Modern Linguistics, 4, 1-20.

English (as an L2): 1) Andreou, G. & Baseki, J. (2012). Phonological and Spelling Mistakes among Dyslexic and Non-Dyslexic Children Learning Two Different Languages: Greek vs English. Psychology 3, 8, 595-600.

2) Bell, S. M. & McCallum, R. S. (2012). Do Foreign Language Learning, Cognitive, and Affective Variables Differ as a Function of Exceptionality Status and Gender? International Education, Vol. 42 Issue (1).

3) Björn, P.M. & Leppänen, P. H. T. (2013). Accelerating decoding-related skills in poor readers learning a foreign language: a computer-based intervention. Educational Psychology, 33, 671–689.

4) Borodkin, K., & Faust, M. (2014). Native Language Phonological Skills in Low-Proficiency Second Language Learners. Language Learning 64:1, 132–159.

5) Breznitz, Z. and Fabian, L. (2012). Reading in L1 and L2: Behavioral and Electrophysiological Evidence: A Comparison between Regular and Dyslexic Readers. M. Leikin et al. (eds.), Current Issues in Bilingualism, Literacy Studies 5, 217-238.

6) Brumen M., Bračko L., & Schmidt Krajnc M. (2014). Slovenian Teachers’ Elements of Support for Pupils with Learning Difficulties in Foreign Language Teaching at the Primary and Lower-Secondary Levels. English Language Teaching, 7, 5.

7) Callens, M., Tops, W., & Brysbaert, M. (2012). Cognitive Profile of Students Who Enter Higher Education with an Indication of Dyslexia. PLoS ONE 7(6): e38081.

8) Elbro, C., Trebbien Daugaard, H., & Gellert, A. S. (2012). Dyslexia in a second language?—a dynamic test of reading acquisition may provide a fair answer. Ann. of Dyslexia 62:172–185.

9) Erbeli, F., & Pižorn, K. (2012). Reading Ability, Reading Fluency and Orthographic Skills: The Case of L1 Slovene English as a Foreign Language Students. C E P S Journal 2 3, 119-140.

10) Goodwin, A., Huggins, C. A., Carlo, M.S., August, D., & Calderon, M. (2013). Minding morphology: How morphological awareness relates to reading for English language learners. Read Writ 26:1387–1415.

11) Lipka, L. & Siegel, L. S. (2012). The development of reading comprehension skills in children learning English as a second language. Read Writ 25:1873–1898.

12) McBride-Chang, C., Shu, H., Chan, W., Wong, T., Wong, A. M.-Y., Zhang, Y., Pan, J., & Chan, P.

(2013). Poor Readers of Chinese and English: Overlap, Stability, and Longitudinal Correlates. Scientific Studies of Reading, 17:1, 57-70.

13) Palladino, P., Bellagamba, I., Ferrari, F., & Cornoldi, C. (2013). Italian Children with Dyslexia are also Poor in Reading English Words, but Accurate in Reading English Pseudowords. Dyslexia 19: 165–177.

14) Russak, S., Kahn-Horwitz, Z. (2013). English as a foreign language spelling: comparisons between good and poor spellers. Journal of Research in Reading, 00, 1–24.

15) Zhou Y., McBride-Chang C., Bui-Yan Law A., Li T., Cho-Yi Cheung A., M.-Y. Wong A., Shu H. (2014). Development of reading-related skills in Chinese and English among Hong Kong Chinese children with and without dyslexia. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 122 75–91.

• Does dyslexia appear in all languages? • Is the profile of the dyslexic student the same

across languages? • If not, why? • Why most research is on the English language

(either as an L1 or L2)?

Paulesu et al. (2001) used the technique of brain imaging and revealed that the brain dysfunctions associated with dyslexia are similar in dyslexics whose mother tongue was English, French and Italian, even if the problems are manifested in different ways depending on the language.

It is concluded that developmental dyslexia generally occurs in all languages, it is a neurological disorder and may vary according to the spelling system and the typology of each language.

Points of activation in the left temporal region of the brain in readers of typical development (ΤD) and in dyslexics (3 languages : French, Italian, English) [(Α=ΤD, Β =Dyslexics, C=difference between Α and Β), Paulesu et al., 2001]

The degree of phonemic-grapheme correspondence of each language influences the way that a student with dyslexia develops his/her reading and spelling abilities.

There are languages that the grapheme-phonemic relationship is simple and they are characterized as phonologically 'transparent' languages (transparent languages), such as the Greek (49 graphemes -25 phonemes, Chatzisavidis & Chatzisavidou, 2011), the Italian and Spanish (45 graphemes – 32 phonemes, Sprenger-Charolles & Cole, 2006). Other languages are characterized as phonologically non-transparent languages, such as English (1120 graphemes - 40 phonemes, Coulmas, 1996 in Sprenger-Charolles, 2003). French (130 graphemes – 35 phonemes) and German (85 graphemes – 40 phonemes) are characterized by an intermediate level of transparency (Ziegler & Goswami, 2005).swami, 2005).

They are not many, mainly because of the historical orthography (it is based on etymology, e.g. εκρήγνυμαι, /ekriγnime/=burst, οικογένεια, /ikoγenia/=family).

It is transparent as far as the grapheme-phonemic reading consistency (95.1%), semi-transparent in orthographic writing (80.3%, Protopapas & Vlachou, 2009). Each letter represents the same sound but the same sound can be represented by different letters or letter pairs, e.g. /i/: ι,η,υ,ει,οι,υι /e/: ε,αι, /o/: ο,ω (Mavrommati & Miles, 2002).

Difficulties because of the rich morphology (rich inflectional system, multiple endings mainly in the verb conjugation).

Generally English has fewer consistent relationships between sounds and letters than many other languages (e.g. the letter sequence ough can be pronounced in 10 different ways) making English spelling not a reliable indicator of pronunciation and vice versa. As a consequence, it takes longer for students to become completely fluent readers than in many other languages, including French, Greek, Spanish (Ziegler & Goswami, 2005) and it has been found they take up to two years longer to learn to read than their counterparts in 12 other European countries (Seymour, 2001)

Consonants are combined in two producing a sound (th, ch, sh) or they can be read individually as well (t and h in penthouse).

Pairs of vowels which can be read as one phoneme (meat) or separately (each letter individually e.g create).

Combinations of letters can be read in several ways according to the word (bear, hear, heart).

In syllable not stressed, especially at the end of a word, the vowel may lose its value in terms of the corresponding sound and is pronounced in the central oral cavity as a neutral vowel sound (‘schwa’) even though it is represented by different phonemes or combinations of phonemes in writing (madam, evolution) or a combination of consonant – vowel may be read as one consonant or a combination of consonants (patient, soldier, nature).

Letters not read (climb, cough, sigh, gnaw, knight).

Quantity: Two or more graphemes correspond to

one sound: ([o] → o, ô, au, eau, eaux) One grapheme does not correspond to

only one sound: Grapheme ‘h’ is not pronounced when

used on its own. It is pronounced with grapheme ‘c’ [ʃ] or [k] (chanson, choeur).

The final consonants are not pronounced:

-s, -x → symbols of plural number

-r → infinitive suffix

-t → verb form suffix

-b, -c, -d, -f, -g, -l, -p, -s, -t, -x, -ct, -ls, -rc, -rs → consonant suffixes

Quality: A grapheme can be pronounced in

several ways: Ε → [ε], [a], [ǝ]

U → [y], [w], [ɥ]

I → [i], [j]

C → [k], [s], [g]

G → [g], [z]

T → [t], [s]

X → [s], [z], [gz], [ks]

Ch → [ʃ], [k]

Ill → [ij], [il]

Eu → [œ], [ø], [y]

Does dyslexia appear in all languages? Yes, it does (both in alphabetic and logographic writing systems, Ho & Fong, 2005)

Is the profile of the dyslexic student the same across languages? No, it isn’t If not, why? Languages are different in terms of transparency (grapheme to

phoneme correspondences) as well as concerning morphosyntax Why most research is on the English language (either as an L1 or L2)?

Because of its great inconsistency between phoneme-grapheme and of the great number of people who have it as an L1 (about 450 million) and as an L2 (about 900-1500 million) as it is the global lingua franca (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language)

Why most research examines phonological skills? Because it is on the English language………..

• Research to date has repeatedly shown the

significant role of phonological awareness in the

reading acquisition (Kuo & Anderson, 2006; Ziegler & Goswami, 2006).

• There is also evidence supporting that morphological

and syntactic awareness has a significant influence on

word reading achievement in alphabetic languages as

well as in languages with characters (Carlisle, 1995; Casalis & Luis-

Alexandre, 2000; Kirby, Deacon, Bowers, Izenberg, Wade-Woolley & Parrila, 2012; Kuo

& Anderson, 2006; Rispens, McBride-Chang, & Reitsma, 2008).

Relationship between L1 and L2 competence skills

Dyslexic students with reading disabilities are weaker than their

normal achieving counterparts on a variety of skills-

phonological/orthographic, morphological, syntactic, and verbal

memory-in their first language (Scanlon & Vellutino, 1997; Siegel & Ryan,

1984) and also in a foreign language (FL) (Geva et al., 1997; Sparks et al., 1998b).

These skills were found to be the components of a general

language ability that best predicted oral and written proficiency

in a FL (Andreou & Baseki, 2010, 2012; Sparks et al., 1998b).

Sparks and Ganschow (1993a,b), in their Linguistic Coding

Differences Hypothesis (LCDH) claimed that both L1 and

L2 learning depend on basic language learning mechanisms

that are similar in both languages and indicated that weak

L2 learners have difficulties in specific aspects of their L1,

namely the phonological /orthographic (sound and sound–

symbol) and syntactic (grammatical) components of

language learning. In other words, native language

phonological and syntactic skills are closely related to FL

learning (Sparks et al., 1998a).

Research in Greek

• In Greek, during the last few years there has been

an increasing interest in the role of morphological

awareness skills in early literacy, namely decoding

and reading comprehension (Manolitsis, 2006; Manolitsis &

Kandilidou, 2011; Rothou& Padeliadu, 2011) and in spelling/writing (Andreou & Baseki, 2010, 2012; 2014; Chliounaki & Bryant, 2002; Tsesmeli, 2007).

• Andreou & Baseki (2010, 2012) examined the ability to write (to compose) a story on the computer based on pictures, in dyslexic and non-dyslexic students by the use of the program ScriptLog. The languages examined were Greek (L1) and English (L2). Results showed that dyslexics generally made more mistakes than non-dyslexics in both languages but both dyslexics and non-dyslexics made more phonological mistakes (pix-picks, solgers-soldiers) in English than in Greek, in which most mistakes were orthographical (γιτονας, πιραζαν, αγνοί). Phonological mistakes are more serious than orthographical ones since they can completely change the meaning of a word or produce non-words. The above finding proves that the type of mistakes in writing is completely depended on the orthographical system of a language (Greek: shallow, English: deep) as well as on the morphology of each language (Greek: rich derivational and inflectional morphology, English: poor inflectional morphology).

• Andreou & Baseki (2014, submitted) examined spelling performance in picture elicited narratives of dyslexic and non dyslexic students in Greek (L1) and English (L2). Phonological, orthographical and morphological errors were assessed and the revising and pausing behavior of the students was also examined, as essential parts of the writing process and closely linked to spelling performance. The results showed: a) Dyslexics made more morphological errors in Greek and more phonological errors in English b) In both groups, dyslexics and non dyslexics, phonological errors were the least frequent type of spelling errors in Greek c) Dyslexics paused and revised as much as non dyslexics but at the end their texts were not successfully revised and exhibited a deficient error detection mechanism.

• Manolitsis (2006) examined the Greek-speaking kindergartners’ sensitivity to morphological structure of words in relation to their early reading skills at year 1. Results indicated that the development of kindergartners’ morphological awareness had a significant contribution to reading accuracy skills at year 1 and that this contribution was not independent of their phonological awareness. • Pandeliadou & Rothou (2011) explored the development of morphological awareness in Greek. The purpose was to explore the possible differences in the formation of derived suffixed words and in the segmentation of compounds among young children. The general ability to segment compounds developed through the three first grades and there was a developmental trend in the ability to decompose adjective compounds into their constituents. The ability to produce derived words seemed to be a difficult task and even third grade students had a moderate performance.

In a recent Phd thesis (Anastasiou, 2014) on L3 speech production (with Greek or Albanian either as an L1 or L2 and English as an L3) it was found that even in heavily inflected languages, like Greek and Albanian, children prefer using more content (verbs, nouns etc.) than function words (articles, pronouns etc.). Content words have rich morphology but they are absolutely necessary for the formation of a sentence.

Ratio of content to function words in the sentences produced as a total per language

54

68

59

55

46

33

41

45

EN

AL

GR

TOTAL

% of words in each language

Content - Function words

Content words

Function words

Content - Function words in code mixed sentences

52

67

61

56

48

33

39

44

ENGLISH mix

ALBANIAN mix

GREEK mix

TOTAL_mix

% of words in each language

Content words

Function words

• Greek language has a shallow orthography with

morphophonemic structure (Porpodas, 2006) and a rich

morphology including derivational morphology, inflections

as well as compounding (Ralli, 2005).

▫ In the Greek language, nouns, adjectives and articles are

inflected by gender, number and case. Verbs are also marked

for person and number. There are three genders: masculine,

feminine and neuter and four cases. The nominative and the

accusative cases have the same suffixes.

The Greek language has a relatively free word order. The same sentence may be expressed in several different word orders. For example, you can say /agorasame mila xthes/, which means we bought apples yesterday and serves as the most neutral structure, but the sentences /mila agorasame xthes/ and /xthes agorasame mila/ are also considered correct, although the emphasis is laid on the product bought and on the time of purchase respectively. The subject is completely omitted in the above mentioned sentences and this is usually the case in Greek because each person in either singular or plural of each tense is showed by a different morpheme in Greek. For this reason, Greek is labelled as a pro-drop (pronoun drop) language since the subject is not compulsory (Andreou, Karapetsas & Galantomos, 2008).

Research in French

The French language has a deep orthography expressing

morphological units as well as phonemes. In French

spelling morphology is often represented at the cost of

phonemic transcription. Thus there are some modifications

of pronunciation from root to derived word (an example is

‘femme’ vs ‘feminin’, where the initial ‘e’ in the derived

form receives a different pronunciation) (Casalis & Luis-Alexandre,

2000).

According to Quémart, Casalis, & Duncan (2012) the French derivational system is rich and morphemes are used as recognition units. As noted by Rey-Debove (1984), 75% of the French words are polymorphemic and can be analyzed in terms of their morphemic constituents. In addition, French derivatives are mostly phonologically transparent, even though the derivation often involves slight orthographic shifts at the end of the bases that do not obscure morphological relations between base and derived forms (e.g., plume – plumage). The prevalence of morphemes in words, along with phonological transparency, appears to facilitate the development of oral knowledge of morphology in French-speaking children (Duncan, Casalis, & Colé, 2009) and may also promote their use of written morphology.

The French language has a canonical word order SVO (subject - verb -

object). This order, relatively strict, has some exceptions: the use of

clitic pronouns object generates SOV structures (il la mange) and the

interrogative sentence order VSO (“connais-tu ce garcon?” but “est-ce

que tu connais ce garcon?”). Moreover, unlike other languages, the

omission of the subject in French makes ungrammatical sentence. In

addition, some lexical items (auxiliaries, pronouns, prepositions,

determinants, the negation markers) serve an essential syntactic role

and are present at a fixed position [at the beginning of a prepositional

phrase for prepositions (e.g. durant le match), in preverbal position

for auxiliary (e.g. J’ ai vu le livre) etc.].

Purpose of the Study Based on the above, the aim of the present study (Andreou &

Tsela, 2014) was to compare performance in L1 (Greek) and L2

(French) measures of morphology and syntax among two groups

of twenty-five learners each: dyslexic and non dyslexic

elementary school children learning French as a foreign

language. The study attempts to provide support for the LCDH in

which Sparks and Ganschow (1993a,b) claim that a student’s

efficiency in the morphosyntactic code of his L1 affects the

degree of success or failure in the L2 classroom.

Participants • Two groups of elementary schoolchildren who attended Grade

5 and Grade 6 and the research included schools of urban, rural

and semi-urban areas.

▫ The Dyslexia group (25 children) diagnosed at KEEDY(Centers for

Diagnosis, Assessment and Support for people with Special

Educational Needs), were within normal range of IQ, and attended

regular classes (with the support offered at school by a special

educator).

▫ The Control group (25 children) matching the Dyslexia group by age,

sex, grade, and level of nonverbal intelligence. According to their

class teachers their reading and writing performances were normal.

Measures • Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices (Raven et al., 1993) assessing

nonverbal ability.

• AMDE (Detecting learning disabilities from teachers) (Pandeliadou &

Sideridis, 2007) valuating student progress by Teachers.

• Reading Test (Test-A, Pandeliadou & Antoniou, 2007): Subtests 5, 6,

7, 8 evaluating student performances in Greek language.

• A specific test battery was constructed aiming to evaluate students’

performance in French as a foreign language and included almost the

same types of tasks with Test-A adapted accordingly for grades 5 and 6.

Morphological awareness: two measures required an oral response by the participants.

Greek language

1. A sentence completion task assessing children’s ability to manipulate the morphological structure of verb inflections. A temporal adverb at the beginning of the sentence defined the alteration of the verb tense. In the verb inflection task, children were asked to change the tense of the verb (shown in parentheses) in 7 sentences. For example:

▫ Χθες …………………. δύο καταπληκτικές ταινίες (βλέπω)

▫ Yesterday I………………... two great movies (see)

2. A sentence completion task assessing children’s ability to

produce compound words and manipulate the morphological

elements of the language. In the compound-inflection task,

children were asked to form words from two others (shown in

parentheses) in the correct gender and number in 8 sentences.

For example:

▫ Στο χωριό έμειναν μόνο ………………………. (γυναίκες + παιδιά)

▫ In the village there were only ............................ (women +

children) left

1. A sentence completion task assessing children’s ability to

manipulate the morphological structure of verb inflections. A

temporal adverb at the beginning of the sentence defined the

alteration of the verb tense. In the verb inflection task, children

were asked to add an inflectional morpheme marking present

and future tense of the verb (shown in parentheses) in 7

sentences. For example:

▫ Demain, il va chanter à l’école (chanter)

▫ Tomorrow, he will sing at school (sing)

French language

2. A sentence completion task assessing children’s ability to

produce derivative words and manipulate morphological

elements of the language. In the morphemic synthesis task,

children were asked to form words given root and suffix (shown

in parentheses) (word forms obtained by derivation are far

more numerous than those obtained by compounding in

French, [Duncan, Casalis & Cole, 2009]) in 8 sentences (Carlisle, 1987; Casalis

& Louis-Alexandre, 2000). For example:

▫ Mon petit chien est adorable (adorer + -able)

▫ My little dog is adorable (adore +-able)

1. Syntactic awareness is measured by using word order correction tasks in which children are asked to repeat the sentence putting the words into the correct order. The task contains a variety of different syntactic structures including prepositional phrases, coordination and subordination and a variety of tenses. Τhere are pictures which help understand the meaning of the sentences (8 sentences). For example:

▫ βροχή / πολύ / είναι / Η / δυνατή

▫ rain / very / is / The / strong

Syntactic awareness: two measures required an oral response by the participants.

Greek language

2. Syntactic awareness measured by using word order

correction tasks in which children are asked to repeat the

sentence putting the words into the correct order without

the help of pictures. The task contains a variety of

different syntactic structures including prepositional

phrases, coordination and subordination and a variety of

tenses (4 sentences). For example:

▫ τη /Βρήκαμε / φωλιά / πουλιών / των

▫ the / We found / nest / birds / of/ the

1. Syntactic awareness is measured by using word order

correction tasks in which children are asked to repeat the

sentence putting the words into the correct order. The

sentences contained easy or medium difficulty syntactic

structures of gradually increasing difficulty and number of

words maintained subject–verb–object order suitable for their

level. Τhere are pictures which help understand the meaning of

the sentences (8 sentences). For example:

▫ aime / la / Il / musique.

▫ loves / music / He

French language

2. Syntactic awareness is measured by using word order

correction tasks in which children are asked to repeat the

sentence putting the words into the correct order without the

help of pictures. The sentences contained easy or medium

difficulty syntactic structures of gradually increasing difficulty

and number of words maintained subject–verb–object order

suitable for their level (4 sentences). For example:

▫ frères / ai / deux / sympas / J’.

▫ have / friendly / two / I / brothers.

Procedure

The children were tested individually in a quiet

room in their school. The series of standardized

and experimental tasks were administered to the

children in Greek and in French.

Statistical analysis: The data were analysed in

accordance with their properties by Wilcoxon and

Mann–Whitney U-test.

Results • The statistical analysis of Wilcoxon revealed statistically significant differences (in the verb inflection task for the 5th grade, in the word compound task for the 6th grade, in the syntax sentences with images for both grades and the syntax sentences for the 5th grade) between the two languages and the two grades for the non dyslexics (Table 1).

• The statistical analysis of Wilcoxon revealed a statistically significant differences between the two languages and the two grades in all the morphological tasks and non statistically significant differences in the syntactic tasks (Table 2).

• The statistical analysis of Mann-Whitney revealed statistically significant differences between dyslexics and non dyslexics of both grades in all morphological and syntactical tasks in both the Greek and the French language (Tables 3 and 4).

Table 1: Mean proportion performance of non-dyslexic students of fifth and sixth grade in morphosyntactic tasks in Greek and French languages

Grade Median [50th Percentile (25th – 75th)] Z

p

Greek French

T1: Verb inflection task* 5 7 (6 - 7) 6 (5,25 – 6) -2,333 0,020** 6 7 (6 - 7) 7 (6 - 7) 0,000 1,000

T2: Word derivation/compound task*** 5 7 (7 – 7,75) 7 (7 – 8) -0,743 0,458 6 7 (6 – 7,75) 7 (7 – 8) -2,646 0,008**

T3: Syntax (sentences with pictures)**** 5 7 (6 – 7) 7 (7 – 8) -2,111 0,035** 6 7 (6 – 7) 7 (7 – 8) -2,271 0,023**

T4: Syntax (sentences without pictures)***** 5 3 (3 - 3) 4 (3 – 4) -2,449 0,014** 6 4 (3 – 4) 4 (3 – 4) -1,000 0,317

*Maximum score =7

**Statistically significant scores

***Maximum score =8

****Maximum score =8

*****Maximum score =4

Table 2: Mean proportion performance of dyslexic students of fifth and sixth grade in morphosyntactic tasks in Greek and French languages

Grade Median[50th Percentile (25th – 75th)] Z p

Greek French

T1: Verb inflection task* 5 3 (2 – 3) 2 (2 - 2) -2,271 0,023**

6 3 (2 – 3,5) 2 (2 - 2) -2,414 0,016**

T2: Word derivation/compound task*** 5 3 (3 – 3,75) 2 (2 – 2,75) -2,810 0,005**

6 3 (3 – 3,75) 2 (2 – 2,75) -2,810 0,005**

T3: Syntax (sentences with pictures)**** 5 3 (3 – 3) 3 (2 – 3) -1,000 0,317

6 3 (2,5 – 3) 3 (2 – 3) -0,333 0,739

T4: Syntax (sentences without pictures)***** 5 1 (1 – 2) 1 (1 – 1,75) -0,816 0,414

6 2 (1 – 2) 1 (1 – 2) -1,890 0,059

*Maximum score =7

**Statistically significant scores

***Maximum score =8

****Maximum score =8

*****Maximum score =4

Table 3: Mean percentage performance of dyslexic and non dyslexic students of fifth and sixth grade in morphosyntactic tasks in Greek language

Grade Median[50th Percentile (25th – 75th)] Z p Non dyslexic Dyslexic

T1: Verb inflection task* 5 7 (6 – 7) 3 (2 - 3) -4,257 0,000** 6 7 (6 – 7) 3 (2 - 3) -4,401 0,000**

T2: Word derivation/compound task*** 5 7 (7 – 7,75) 3 (3 – 3,75) -4,298 0,000** 6 7 (6 – 7,5) 3 (2,5 – 3) -4,439 0,000**

T3: Syntax (sentences with pictures)**** 5 7 (6 – 7) 3 (3 - 3) -4,316 0,000** 6 7 (6 – 7) 4 (3 – 4) -4,482 0,000**

T4: Syntax (sentences without pictures)***** 5 3 (3 - 3) 1 (1 – 2) -4,211 0,000** 6 3 (2,5 – 3) 2 (1 – 2) -4,291 0,000**

*Maximum score =7

**Statistically significant scores

***Maximum score =8

****Maximum score =8

*****Maximum score =4

Table 4: Mean percentage performance of dyslexic and non dyslexic students of fifth and sixth grade in morphosyntactic tasks in French language

Grade Median[50th Percentile (25th – 75th)] Z p

Non dyslexic Dyslexic

T1: Verb inflection task* 5 6 (5,25 – 6) 2 (2 – 2) -4,437 0,000** 6 7 (6 – 7) 2 (2 – 2) -4,572 0,000**

T2: Word derivation/compound task*** 5 7 (7 – 8) 2 (2 – 2,75) -4,340 0,000** 6 7 (7 – 8) 2 (2 – 2,5) -4,540 0,000**

T3: Syntax (sentences with pictures)**** 5 7 (7 – 8) 3 (2 – 3) -4,262 0,000** 6 7 (7 – 8) 3 (2 – 3) -4,477 0,000**

T4: Syntax (sentences without pictures)***** 5 4 (3 – 4) 1 (1 – 1,75) -4,350 0,000** 6 4 (3 – 4) 1 (1 – 2) -4,518 0,000**

*Maximum score =7

**Statistically significant scores

***Maximum score =8

****Maximum score =8

*****Maximum score =4

Discussion

Our findings generally reveal significant differences

between the two groups on morphosyntactic tasks in

both L1 and L2. Greek dyslexic students encounter

difficulties in learning French as a foreign language

and their morphosyntactic abilities in both languages

are generally weaker than those of non dyslexic

students.

More specifically, when the two groups were examined separately in both their

L1 and L2, concerning morphology, non dyslexics showed statistically

significant differences in the verb inflection task in the 5th grade (in favour of

Greek) and in the word compound/derivation task in the 6th grade (in favour of

French, Table 1). Concerning syntax, they displayed statistically significant

differences in the sentences with pictures in both grades (in favour of French)

and in sentences without pictures in the 5th grade (in favour of French, Table

1). It seems that learning a foreign language is an easy task for non dyslexics, at

least at the very beginning, at the low level of L2 learning the students of our

sample were. They did not encounter difficulties in the morphology and esp.

the syntax of L2 (French) probably owed to the fact that morphological and

syntactical skills are the components of a general language ability and once

acquired successfully in L1 they are transferred to L2 (Sparks et al., 1998).

Dyslexics on the other hand, displayed statistically significant

differences in all morphological tasks in both grades while in the

syntactical tasks no statistically significant differences were

found between Greek and French in both grades (Table 2).

Morphology seems to be heavily affected in dyslexics esp. when

learning a foreign language. Their scores were very low in both

morphological tasks in both languages but they were lower in L2.

Our study showed a particular difficulty on the part of dyslexics

in both the verb inflection task and the word compound task esp.

in their L2.

Their scores were also very low in both syntactical tasks but they were equally low in both Greek and French. The strict word order of the French language (S-V-O) taught explicitly [explicit teaching seems to facilitate language learning in dyslexics (Kormos, 2013; Schneider & Crombie, 2003; Sparks, 2012)] in a formal setting (foreign language classroom) seems to be an advantage for them who although they scored extremely low, their score was not statistically significant different from that of their L1 which was equally low.

When we compared the performance of the dyslexics in their L1 and L2 we generally found that students' native language skills appear to affect their ability to meet the demands of learning an L2. The dyslexic group performed very low on both their languages (L1 and L2) (Table 2) indicating that, according to the Linguistic Coding Differences Hypothesis (LCDH), difficulties expressed in L1 linguistic coding will resurface in FL acquisition (Sparks, & Ganschow, (1993a, b). Their difficulties in the morphology and syntax in L1 had an immediate and severe impact on their L2 learning and the level of proficiency in the morphosyntactic code of the Greek language seems to determine the degree of their success in the French language classroom.

When dyslexics compared to non dyslexics, our results

indicate that dyslexic students performed more poorly than

non dyslexics in both languages and in all morphosyntactic

tasks (Tables 3, 4). These differences give support to the

studies reviewed above indicating that inflectional

morphology (Egan and Pring, 2004; Joanisse et al., 2000), derivational

morphology (Siegel, 2008) and syntax (Abu-Rabia, Share & Mansour, 2003;

Scarborough, 1990) are deficient in dyslexics.

This is also supported by the study of Casalis, Deacon and

Pacton [2011, (in Verhoeven & Perfetti, 2011)] who studied the

relationship between morphological awareness and

spelling. They found that the relationship between spelling

and morphological awareness in French seems to be

affected by both the developmental level of the child and

the phonological structure of the items in the

morphological awareness task.

Furthermore, Casalis et al. (2004), who examined the

morphological awareness skills of dyslexic children, found

that the development of morphological knowledge in

dyslexics might depend on their age and reading experience

rather than on their phonological abilities.

Taking into account that the dyslexic children in our sample

were beginners with little reading experience in French can

also provide an explanation for their low performance esp.

in morphological tasks.

The study provides implications for alternative methodologies which might be

helpful in dyslexic L2 learning. The difficulties encountered by the dyslexics in

our study in morphosyntactic tasks delineates the need for carefully designed

instructional programs including exercises which will strengthen their

syntactical as well as their inflectional and productive morphological skills,

given the fact that morphology is strongly connected to spelling (Casalis et al.,

2011) and morphosyntactic skills can predict reading ability (Cottardo et al.,

1996). Therefore, early detection and intervention could help these students

keep in pace with their classmates in L2 learning or at least not lag extremely

behind them. Well-trained and experienced L2 teachers who will apply

programs designed for dyslexic L2 learning is also a need.

However, our results should be treated cautiously due to the small sample size and to the limited number of language tasks.

More studies are needed on dyslexic L2 learning with larger samples and a variety of language tasks in different languages which will give us the opportunity to recognize the linguistic profile of the dyslexic student in different languages so as to design and apply an instructional program suitable for his needs in L2 learning. Dyslexics CAN learn foreign languages provided they are taught with an appropriate method by an appropriate teacher.

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Thank you for your attention G. Andreou, Professor in Linguistics, andreou@uth.gr Department of Special Education, University of Thessaly, Greece