Parrila-Georgiou-2020

Authors: Rauno Parrila, George K. Georgiou Timothy C. Papadopoulos.

Article: Dyslexia in a consistent orthography: Evidence from reading‐level match design.

Publication: Dyslexia (Wiley). 26: 343– 358 2020 | DOI: 10.1002/dys.1650

[Full Text]

Abstract

Studies in consistent orthographies using reading‐level (RL) match design have produced conflicting results, possibly because of problems with general ability and RL matching in many studies. We matched the participants on both verbal and nonverbal ability and on reading tasks with no ceiling effects and compared the performance of Grades 4 and 6 Greek‐speaking children with dyslexia to those of chronological age (CA) and RL matched control groups across a variety of tasks associated with dyslexia (phonological awareness, rapid naming, phonological memory, and orthographic processing). The results showed that although both Grade 4 and Grade 6 dyslexics performed poorer than the CA groups in most tasks, they did not perform poorer than the RL group in any of the tasks included. We conclude with a discussion of the theoretical ramifications of the results and the appropriateness of the RL match design in studying dyslexia in consistent orthographies.

Tagged as: orthographic transparency

Citation:

Parrila, R, Georgiou, GK, Papadopoulos, TC. Dyslexia in a consistent orthography: Evidence from reading‐level match design. Dyslexia. 2020; 26: 343– 358. https://doi.org/10.1002/dys.1650

Excerpts from Full Text / Notes:

Discussion:

We examined whether children with dyslexia learning to read a highly consistent orthography (Greek) experience phonological awareness, phonological memory, rapid naming, and orthographic processing deficits compared with RL matched younger peers, and whether the possible deficits are the same or different at two different time points of elementary education. The results of the study are clear: When comorbidity associated with reading deficits is con-trolled in sample selection and the groups are matched on both verbal and nonverbal GA and on more than one taskrelevant for the diagnosis of dyslexia, the older dyslexic children perform as well or better than the younger RL matched control children in all administered tasks.

Our results also showed that when GA and word RL are matched more rigorously, reading comprehension of children with dyslexia is comparable with what we would expect on the basis of their age (see Protopapas & Skaloumbakas, 2007, for comparable results) and indeed better than the comprehension of younger RL controls, as would be theoretically expected (Gough & Tunmer, 1986)

One possible conclusion from these results is that phonological awareness, rapid naming, phonological memory,or orthographic processing skills are not causally related to dyslexia in a consistent orthography, at least during the elementary school years.

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