C

Austria

Principal investigator(s):

Christian Klicpera

Barbara Gasteiger-Klicpera

Alfred Schabmann

Address: University of Vienna

E-mail-address of the contact-person: christian.klicpera@univie.ac.at

Title of study:

Viennese longitudinal studies of reading and writing development – First grade study.

Key words:

reading and spelling phonological awareness prediction of reading and spelling beginning of reading

Beginning date of study (month, year): 10-83

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 06-87

Number of completed waves: 9

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 9

Time interval between waves (average): 2 mths. in the 1^st grade, then 1 yr.

Maximum sample size: 120

Size of core sample: 82

Age range at first data collection: 76-87 mths.

Data computerized? yes

Are data accessible to other researchers? no

Type of study:

Correlation study: yes

Intervention study: no

Other:

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups:

Type of treatment group(s):

No. of control groups:

Type of control group(s):

Duration of intervention (weeks or month):

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month):

Test instruments:

Abstract:

The study sought to determine the beginning of reading development in the first grade and the prediction of reading ability at the end of the first and the following grades by general and specific developmental factors. By testing the children every two months during the first grade, it was hoped to gain a more detailed insight into the rapidly evolving reading skills and the accompanying changes of developing phonological awareness. Children were recruited from whole-day schools so that the rather extensive test program interferred minimally with school routines. It could be shown that most children acquired rather rapidly the ability to read not only (from the reading instruction) known but also unknown words and pseudowords once the corresponding letters were introduced. Poor readers lagged severely behind in the ability to read unknown words but also in their abilty to read already practised words. The development of reading skills was predicted by the level of insight into the phonological principle at the start of schooling (in addition to the prediction by the alphabetic knowledge). However, phonological awareness rapidly evolved during the first two months of reading instruction, and there was a strong interaction between this development and the development of reading skills.

Publications:

Klicpera,C. & Innerhofer,P. (1985). Das Unterrichtsverhalten des Lehrers als Einflussvariable auf die Leseentwicklung von Erstklaesslern. In: D.Albert (Hrsg.) Bericht ueber den 34.Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft fuer Psychologie in Wien 1984. Bd.2. Goettingen: Hogrefe.

Klicpera,C. & Schachner-Wolfram,S. (1988). Entwicklung der Lesefaehigkeit waehrend des ersten Schuljahres. Heilpaedagogische Forschung, 14, 27-35.

Klicpera,C. & Schachner-Wolfram,S. (1988). Entwicklung der Lesefaehigkeit waehrend des ersten Schuljahres: 2.Entwicklung des Leseverhaltens. Heilpaedagogische Forschung, 14, 36-43.

Klicpera,C. (1989). The reading development of normal and poor readers in the first grade: How helpful is the concept of developmental stages for the understanding of reading acquisition in German-speaking children. In: M.Bambring, F.Loesel & H.Skowronek (Hrsg.) Children at risk: Assessment, longitudinal research, and intervention. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter (S.97-118).

Klicpera,C. & Gasteiger-Klicpera,B. (1989). Die Entwicklung des Lesens und Schreibens bei Kindern mit Lese- und Rechtschreibschwierigkeiten. In: L.Dummer-Smoch (Hrsg.) Legasthenie 1988. Bericht ueber den Kongress 1988 des Bundesverbandes Legasthenie. Hannover: Bundesverband Legasthenie (S.49-66).

Klicpera,C., Gasteiger-Klicpera,B. & Schabmann,A. (1993). Lesen und Schreiben - Entwicklung und Schwierigkeiten: Die Wiener Laengsschnittuntersuchungen ueber die Entwicklung, den Verlauf und die Ursachen von Lese- und Schreibschwierigkeiten in der Pflichtschulzeit. Bern: Huber Verlag.

I

Austria

Principal investigator(s): Christian Klicpera

Barbara Gasteiger-Klicpera

Alfred Schabmann

Address: University of Vienna

E-mail-address of the contact-person: christian.klicpera@univie.ac.at

Title of study:

Viennese longitudinal studies of reading and writing development – The development in the higher grades.

Key words:

reading acquisition spelling acquisition writing ability phonological awareness instructional settings language abilities classroom observation behavioral disorders parent-child interactions remedial intervention

Beginning date of study (month, year): 02-85

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 06-92

Number of completed waves: 5

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 5

Time interval between waves (average): 1 yr. in the primary school, then 4 yrs.

Maximum sample size: 541

Size of core sample: 283

Age range at first data collection: 89-103 mths.

Data computerized? yes

Are data accessible to other researchers? no

Type of study:

Correlation study: yes

Intervention study: yes

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups: 1

Type of treatment group(s):

• Supplemental intervention for poor readers in schools; there was no influence on the type of the intervention, but the interventions were observed for their content and their organization

No. of control groups: 1

Type of control group(s):

• No treatment

Duration of intervention (weeks or month): 1/2 yrs. (some children received supplemental inter-vention for 1, others for 2 yrs., either in the 2^nd or the 3^rd grade or in both; the decision was up to the classroom teacher; the influence of intervention on reading and spelling development was compared)

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month): 1 hr./week

Test instruments:

Abstract:

The study sought to analyze the long-term development in reading and spelling of an unselected larger group of school children and to determine the characteristics of children with reading and spelling difficulties. We traced the development of nearly all children in 23 Viennese classrooms (N=541) from the beginning of 2nd grade to the end of 8th grade. The main emphasis was on the study of the development of oral reading - speed and accuracy in reading words and nonwords, and of the development of spelling and of writing and in the attempt to identify subgroups of children with difficulties in the acquisition of literacy. In addition to the analysis of the reading and spelling processes, the study also sought to identify factors that caused the manifestation and further development of difficulties in this area. Therefore, the cognitive abilities of children were investigated. Interviews with parents concentrated on the possibilities of the parents to help this children, whereas observations of classroom instruction sought to analyze what kind of instruction the children received in different classrooms. The study included also an intervention part where the supplemental instruction for children with reading and spelling disabilities was analyzed by observing these lessons and studying the results of the intervention longitudinally. One further topic was the comorbidity of learning and behavioral difficulties, especially in the longitudinal perspective.

It could be shown that the group with difficulties in the acquisition of literacy was not homogeneous, neither crossectionally nor longitudinally, and that many influence factors seemed to be at work in the development and maintenance of these difficulties. Despite a generally great stability of difficulties, there were some children who grew out of their initial difficulties. However, this was unrelated to the intervention efforts at school and seemed more related to the reading behavior of these children at home. Difficulties in reading, spelling and writing must also be treated - according to the results - somewhat differently in regard to the cognitive abilities of the children.

Publications:

Klicpera,C. & Gasteiger-Klicpera,B. (1989). Die Entwicklung des Lesens und Schreibens bei Kindern mit Lese- und Rechtschreibschwierigkeiten. In: L.Dummer-Smoch (Hrsg.) Legasthenie 1988. Bericht ueber den Kongress 1988 des Bundesverbandes Legasthenie. Hannover: Bundesverband Legasthenie (S.49-66).

Gasteiger-Klicpera,B. & Klicpera,C. (1989). Legastheniker-Foerderkurse an den Grundschulen: Ein geeignetes Foerdermodell? Ergebnis einer Evaluationsstudie an den Wiener Schulen. In: L.Dummer-Smoch (Hrsg.) Legasthenie 1988. Bericht ueber den Kongress 1988 des Bundesverbandes Legasthenie. Hannover: Bundesverband Legasthenie (S.272-290).

Klicpera,C., Gasteiger-Klicpera,B. & Huetter,E. (1993). Die Legasthenikerfoerderung in zwei Wiener Schulbezirken. Eine Evaluationsstudie einer schulinternen Foerdermassnahme. In: Bundesministerium fuer Unterricht und Kunst (Hrsg.) Was macht die Foerderung effektiv? Kontroverse (?) Konzepte zur Legasthenikerbetreuung. Wien: Ketterl-Verlag (S.41-147).

Klicpera,C., Gasteiger-Klicpera,B. & Schabmann,A. (1993). Lesen und Schreiben - Entwicklung und Schwierigkeiten: Die Wiener Laengsschnittuntersuchungen ueber die Entwicklung, den Verlauf und die Ursachen von Lese- und Schreibschwierigkeiten in der Pflichtschulzeit. Bern: Huber Verlag,.

Klicpera,C. & Schabmann,A. (1993). Do German-speaking children have a chance to overcome reading and spelling difficulties? A longitudinal survey from the second until the eighth grade. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 8, 307-323.

Klicpera,C., Schabmann,A. & Gasteiger-Klicpera,B. (1993). Lesen- und Schreibenlernen waehrend der Pflichtschulzeit: Eine Laengsschnittuntersuchung ueber die Haeufigkeit und Stabilitaet von Lese- und Rechtschreibschwierigkeiten in einem Wiener Schulbezirk. Zeitschrift fuer Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie, 21, 214-225.

Klicpera,C. & Schabmann,A. (1993). Die Haeufigkeit von emotionalen Problemen und Verhaltensauffaelligkeiten im Unterricht und der Zusammenhang mit Lese- und Rechtschreibschwierigkeiten: Ergebnisse einer Laengsschnittuntersuchung. Praxis der Kinderpsychologie und Kinderpsychiatrie, 42, 358-363.

Klicpera,C. & Gasteiger-Klicpera,B. (1994). Linkshaendigkeit und Legasthenie: Kein Beleg fuer die Rechtsverschiebungstheorie bei Wiener Kindern, aber Hinweise auf Verzerrungen bei der Auswahl von Kindern fuer Foerdermassnahmen. Paediatrie und Paedologie, 29, 11-15.

Klicpera,C. & Gasteiger-Klicpera,B. (1994). Sind die Lese- und Rechtschreibleistungen von Buben staerker von der Unterrichtsqualitaet abhaengig als jene von Maedchen? Praxis der Kinderpsychologie und Kinderpsychiatrie, 43, 2-8.

Klicpera,C. & Gasteiger-Klicpera,B. (1994). Die langfristige Entwicklung der muendlichen Lesefertigkeit bei guten und schwachen Lesern. Zeitschrift fuer Entwicklungspsychologie und paedagogische Psychologie, 26, 278-290.

Klicpera,C., Gasteiger-Klicpera,B. & Schabmann,A. (1994). Wieweit unterscheiden sich durchschnittliche Leser mit Rechtschreibschwierigkeiten von Kindern mit Lese- und Rechtschreibschwierigkeiten? Verlauf, Art der Rechtschreibfehler und Lernvoraussetzungen. Zeitschrift fuer Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie, 22, 87-96.

Klicpera,C., Gasteiger-Klicpera,B. & Schabmann,A. (1994). Was kennzeichnet isolierte Schwierigkeiten beim Rechtschreiben? Heilpaedagogische Forschung, 20, 19-26.

C

Austria

Principal investigator(s):

Heinz Wimmer

Karin Landerl

Heinz Mayringer

Address: University Salzburg

E-mail-address of the contact-person: heinz.wimmer@sbg.ac.at

Title of study:

Dyslexia: Identification of at-risk children and specification of their early learning difficulties

Key words:

dyslexia phonological skills phonological awareness phonological memory skills phonological memory skills prediction of reading and spelling

Beginning date of study (month, year): 03-94

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 06-98

Number of completed waves: 4 with whole sample, additional 2 cross-sectional

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): +1

Time interval between waves (average): 1 yr.

Maximum sample size: 623 boys

Size of core sample: 550

Age range at first data collection: 70 - 97 mths.

Data computerized? yes

Are data accessible to other researchers? yes

Type of study:

Correlation study: yes

Intervention study: no

Other:

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups:

Type of treatment group(s):

No. of control groups:

Type of control group(s):

Duration of intervention (weeks or month):

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month):

Test instruments:

Abstract:

The study investigates cognitive contributions to dyslexia. More than 600 boys were initially tested at the beginning of their first school year (age 6) with a battery of phonological and non-verbal (visual, visuo-motorical) tasks. Reading and spelling were assessed at the end of Grades 1, 2, and 3. Cross-sectional assessments - comparing dyslexic children with control peers - of a broad range of cognitive abilities were conducted at the end of Grades 2 and 4 (data from the latter time are not analysed yet).

Comparisons of children diagnosed as dyslexic at the end of Grade 2 and 3, respectively, and age matched control children led to following results:

In sharp contrast to findings from English-speaking children, phonological awareness (onset and rhyme identification) did not proof to be strongly associated with reading and spelling impairment.

The dyslexic children showed a marked deficit in phonological short-term memory (repeating single pseudowords or pseudoword pairs). A striking impairment of dyslexic children was also found for a long-term storage of phonological word forms (learning new words, recognition of existing words). In the word learning tasks, immediate repetition of the words did not pose any problems. Concerning the recognition of existing words (e.g., Ventilator-Ventivator-Ventiletor as options presented via headphones) it is important that groups were perfectly matched on receptive vocabulary.

The dyslexic children also displayed a reduced speed of retrieving familiar phonological word forms from long-term memory via visual retrieval cues (naming of objects or figures). Statistical control of visual and articulatory components of the demand led to conclude that actually the access of the phonological word forms was slower in the dyslexic children.

On several non-verbal tests the dyslexic children were comparable with the control children (visual search, finger localization, peg moving, balancing).

Publications:

Mayringer, H., Wimmer, H. & Landerl, K. (1998). Die Vorhersage frueher Lese- und Rechtschreibschwierigkeiten: Phonologische Schwaechen als Praediktoren. Zeitschrift fuer Entwicklungspsychologie und Paedagogische Psychologie, 30, 57-69.

Mayringer, H. & Wimmer, H. (1998). Das Lernen neuer phonologischer Wortformen bei Lese-Rechtschreibschwaeche. In J. Glueck, M. Jirasko & B. Rollett (Hg.), Perspektiven psychologischer Forschung in OEsterreich (Teil 2, S. ???-???). Wien: WUV.

Mayringer, H., Wimmer, H. & Landerl, K. (in press). Phonological skills and literacy acquisition in German: How strong is the relationship during the first year of school? In P. Reitsma & L. Verhoeven (Eds.), Problems and interventions in literacy development. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Mayringer, H. & Wimmer, H. (1998). Learning three new names: Evidence for a phonological learning deficit of (surface) dyslexic children. Manuscript submitted for publication, University of Salzburg.

Mayringer, H. & Wimmer, H. (1998). Kognitive Defizite lese-rechtschreibschwacher Kinder. Manuskript eingereicht zur Publikation, Universitaet Salzburg.

Wimmer, H., Mayringer, H. & Landerl, K. (1998). Poor reading: A deficit in skill-automatization or a phonological deficit? Scientific Studies of Reading, 2, 321-340.

Wimmer, H., Mayringer, H., Raberger, T. & Stadler, B. (1998). Reading and balancing: Evidence against the automatization deficit explanation of developmental dyslexia. Manuscript submitted for publication, University of Salzburg.

C

Austria

Principal investigator(s): Heinz Wimmer

Address: University Salzburg

E-mail-address of the contact-person: heinz.wimmer@sbg.ac.at

Title of study:

Precursors of reading and spelling difficulties

Key words:

early cognitive deficits reading and spelling

Beginning date of study (month, year): 10-96

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 06-00

Number of completed waves: 3

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 4

Time interval between waves (average): 1 yr.

Maximum sample size: approx. 365

Size of core sample: 300

Age range at first data collection: 6;6 yrs.

Data computerized? yes

Are data accessible to other researchers? no

Type of study:

Correlation study: yes

Intervention study: no

Other:

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups:

Type of treatment group(s):

No. of control groups:

Type of control group(s):

Duration of intervention (weeks or month):

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month):

Test instruments:

Abstract:

Aims of both longitudinal studies are

(1) prediction of children with reading & spelling difficulties

(2) identification of early cognitive deficits of children with reading & spelling difficulties

Measures are from following domains:

(1) phonological awareness

(2) phonological memory (short-term)

(3) naming speed

(4) control measures: visual motor speed, IQ

Findings show

(1) naming speed deficits are more predictive than phonological awareness or phonological memory deficits

(2) there are differences in early cognitive deficits between reading fluency disabled readers and reading accuracy disabled readers

Publications:

Wimmer, H., Mayringer, H., & Landerl, K. The double-deficit hypothesis and learning to read a more regular orthography. Submitted.

Wimmer, H., Mayringer, H., & Landerl, K. (1998). Poor reading: a deficit in skill-automatization or a phonological deficit? Scientific studies of Reading, 2 (4), 321-340.

Mayringer, H., Wimmer, H., & Landerl, K. (1998). Phonological skills and literacy acquisition in German. In P. Reitsma & L. Verhoeven (Eds.), Problems and interventions in literacy development. (pp. 147-161). Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Mayringer, H., Wimmer, H. & Landerl, K. (1998). Die Vorhersage frueher Lese- und Rechtschreibschwierigkeiten: Phonologische Fertigkeiten als Praediktoren. Zeitschrift fuer Entwicklungspsychologie und Paedagogische Psychologie, 30 (2), 57-69.

C

Belgium

Principal investigator(s):

Els Gadeyne

Pol Ghesquiere

Patrick Onghena

Address: Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

E-mail-address of the contact-person: Els.Gadeyne@ped.kuleuven.ac.be

Title of study:

The relationship between academic achievement and psychosocial functioning of primary school children. A prospective study including home- and school-information.

Key words:

learning disabilities behavioral disorders psychosocial functioning structural equation modelling

Beginning date of study (month, year): 10-97

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 02-01

Number of completed waves: 1

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 4

Time interval between waves (average): 6 mths.

Maximum sample size: 370

Size of core sample: yet unknown

Age range at first data collection: 5 - 6 yrs.

Data computerized? yes

Are data accessible to other researchers? no

Type of study:

Correlation study: yes

Intervention study: no

Other: correlation study with structural equation modelling

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups:

Type of treatment group(s):

No. of control groups:

Type of control group(s):

Duration of intervention (weeks or month):

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month):

Test instruments:

Abstract:

Aim of the study: Recent international literature abundantly documents the frequent co-existence of learning and behaviour problems. There is yet a lot to investigate about the reasons and processes that link these two sets of problems. With this study, we want to describe the dynamic relation between academic achievement and psychosocial functioning in primary school children. Besides behaviour (problems), we also assess self-esteem, motivation and social status in the class as elements of psychosocial functioning. From an ecological point of view, teacher and family factors are included (e.g. teachers´ feelings of efficacy, accommodations made by schools/teachers towards students with school problems, parenting behaviour and parenting values). Sample and procedure: The initial sample consists of 370 kindergarten children at the age of 5 to 6 years. By means of four waves with an average time interval of six months, we will follow the children up to halfway their second grade. At each measurement point, the children will be tested on their level of (pre-)academic achievement, and questioned on their self-esteem, achievement motivation and social status. At the same time, parents and teachers are questioned on the children’s behaviour and on parenting/teaching variables. The nature of our research questions requires a multilevel analysis. In order to gain insight in the relationship between the different variables we will apply structural equation modelling techniques.

Publications:

C

Belgium

Principal investigator(s):

Nathalie Genard

Philippe Mousty

Jesus Alegria

Alain Content

Jacqueline Leybaert

Jose Morais

Address: Universite Libre de Bruxelles

E-mail-address of the contact-person: ngenard@ulb.ac.be

Title of study:

Subtypes of developmental dyslexia: A longitudinal approach of the unique vs. multiple sources of impairments.

Key words:

developmental dyslexia subtypes of dyslexia

Beginning date of study (month, year): 04-96

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 10-98

Number of completed waves: 3

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 3

Time interval between waves (average): 1 yr.

Maximum sample size: 75

Size of core sample: 38

Age range at first data collection: 10;6 yrs.

Data computerized? yes

Are data accessible to other researchers? yes

Type of study:

Correlation study: yes

Intervention study: no

Other: evolution of the surface and phonological sub-groups isolated by the regression method

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups:

Type of treatment group(s):

No. of control groups:

Type of control group(s):

Duration of intervention (weeks or month):

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month):

Test instruments:

Abstract:

According to the hypothesis of multiple sources of specific impairments, two mechanisms, one phonological and the other lexical, contribute to the processing of written word recognition. Delays or disorders in the development of visual abilities could lead to a surface pattern, characterized by poor irregular word reading, whereas delays or disorders in the development of phonological abilities could lead to a phonological pattern, characterized by poor pseudoword reading. According to the unique phonological deficit theory, a severe disability would cause phonological dyslexia. A less severe trouble would cause surface dyslexia because the phonological strategy might be used but would not be efficient enough to create and strengthen orthographic representations in the lexical system. In the framework of a longitudinal study, the hypothesis of different specific impairments would predict a relative stability of the profiles. The phonological profile would not evolve to the surface profile because this latter is the result of a visual trouble. However, if there is a unique phonological impairment, children who receive the benefit of a phonic instruction at school should evolve from the phonological profile to the surface profile. In order to isolate sub-groups of dyslexics, we used the regression method proposed by Castles & Coltheart (1993) and identified 42 surface dyslexics and only 3 phonological dyslexics from a sample of 75 dyslexic children (Genard et al., 1998). A part of the dyslexic sample (38 children) was assessed in April 96, June 97 and November 98 on the same measure. Surface dyslexics showed a significant improvement in reading comprehension, but not in reading of pseudowords, indicating a ceiling in their phonological abilities and a mild phonological deficit. Their progress in their general reading abilities is not associated with an improvement of their decoding abilities. Phonological dyslexics improved in pseudoword reading, suggesting that they are still sensitive to the phonic instruction given at school. Surface dyslexics sufficiently improved their irregular word reading to catch an harmonious profile of reading up, at the end of the third testing. Among the three phonological cases, only one case presented a phonological profile at the end of the third testing. The other two improved in pseudoword but not in irregular word reading and therefore displayed a surface profile at the time of the second evaluation. At the end of the third assessment, one of these children catch an harmonious profile up. This transition to the surface profile is not surprising if one considers that a certain mastery of phonological mediation constitutes a prerequisite to the development of orthographic processes. This result also confirms the hypothesis of a unique phonological deficit.

Publications:

Genard, N. (1996). Developmental dyslexia and dysgraphia: longitudinal analysis of reading and spelling patterns. In P. Reitsma & L. Verhoeven (Eds.), Problems in literacy acquisition: causes and interventions. Paedologisch Instituut - VU Amsterdam, The Netherlands (p.21).

Genard, N., Content, A., Mousty, P., Alegria, J., Leybaert, J. & Morais, J. (1997). Subtypes of developmental dyslexia. In C. Hulme & M. Snowling (Eds.), Dyslexia: Biological Bases, Identification & Intervention. Athenaeum Press Ltd, Gateshead, Tyne & Wear (p.39).

Genard, N., Mousty, P., Alegria, J. & Morais, J. (1999). Hypothesis of a unique phonological deficit in developmental dyslexia: what about the phonological and surface profiles? In C. Braet & F. Vander Linden (Eds.), Annual Meeting of the Belgian Psychological Society. Belgian Psychological Society, Ghent (p.12).

Genard, N., Mousty, P., Content, A., Alegria, J., Leybaert, J. & Morais, J. (1997). Distinct profiles of developmental dyslexia. In A. Cleeremans, R. Kolinsky & P. Mousty (Eds.), Proceedings of the 50th Anniversary Meeting of the Belgian Psychological Society. Belgian Psychological Society, Brussels (p.45).

Genard, N., Mousty, P., Content, A., Alegria, J., Leybaert, J. & Morais, J. (1998). Methods to establish subtypes of developmental dyslexia. In P. Reitsma & L. Verhoeven (Eds.), Problems and interventions in literacy development. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.

C

Belgium

Principal investigator(s):

Vincent Goetry

Regine Kolinsky

Philippe Mousty

Address: Universite Libre de Bruxelles

E-mail-address of the contact-person: vgoetry@ulb.ac.be

Title of study:

Longitudinal study of the development of the metaphonological and orthographic skills in monolinguals and bilinguals and their impact on the metaphonological and orthographic representation of their native language.

Key words:

bilingualism acquisition of literacy cross-linguistic differences

Beginning date of study (month, year): 10-98

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 06-01

Number of completed waves: 1

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 5

Time interval between waves (average): 6 - 8 mths.

Maximum sample size: 200

Size of core sample: 200

Age range at first data collection: 5 - 6 yrs.

Data computerized? yes

Are data accessible to other researchers? yes

Type of study:

Correlation study: yes

Intervention study: no

Other:

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups:

Type of treatment group(s):

No. of control groups:

Type of control group(s):

Duration of intervention (weeks or month):

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month):

Test instruments:

Abstract:

While several studies have shown that inter language differences in phonological, orthographic and rhythmic characteristics may lead to differential development rates of the multidimensional phonological and orthographic abilities, most models of literacy acquisition are bed on the study of English children.

The first aim of this longitudinal study is to evaluate the contrastive hypothesis that two different languages, i.e. French and Dutch, may give rise to differential rates and/or patterns of development in phonological awareness and subsequent literacy acquisition. The second aim of this study is to investigate the specific effects of literacy acquisition on the phonological representations of the language.

To test those hypothesis, the metaphonological, reading and writing abilities of about 200 children will be assessed during a three-years follow-up study. Two groups of 50 monolinguals (French, Dutch) and two groups of bilinguals (French children who attend Dutch schools and Dutch children who attend French schools) will be tested.

The comparison between monolinguals and bilinguals is aimed at giving better picture of the differential effects of language input (phonology) and formal instruction (orthography) on the metaphonological and literacy development in children. The comparison between the two bilingual groups will give opportunity to disentangle the relations that can develop between those two different languages (transfer from first to second language versus from second to first language; general versus specific transfer). The longitudinal dimension is aimed at assessing the causality links between the differential metaphonological skills acquired in each language (for monolinguals) or in both languages (for bilinguals) and the reading and writing of particular structures (e.g. complex syllabic and subsyllabic structures).

Publications:

C

Belgium

Principal investigator(s): J. Leybaert

Address: U.L.B.

E-mail-address of the contact-person: leybaert@ulb.ac.be

Title of study:

Longitudinal study of reading and spelling development in French speaking children.

Key words:

word recognition word spelling vocabulary

Beginning date of study (month, year): 1991

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 1996

Number of completed waves: 4

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 4

Time interval between waves (average): 1 yr.

Maximum sample size: 317

Size of core sample: 256

Age range at first data collection: 4;6 - 5;6 yrs.

Data computerized? no

Are data accessible to other researchers? no

Type of study:

Correlation study: yes

Intervention study: no

Other:

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups:

Type of treatment group(s):

No. of control groups:

Type of control group(s):

Duration of intervention (weeks or month):

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month):

Test instruments:

Abstract:

Data were collected on French-speaking children during a 5-year period: when children were in kindergarten (N=317), when they were in the first grade, in the second grade and in the fourth grade. Complete data are available for 258 children. The evaluation included tests of non-verbal intelligence, vocabulary, morpho-syntax, letter knowledge, word and pseudo-word reading, word spelling, and reading comprehension. Correlational analyses from kindergarten to second grade indicated an effect of phonological awareness tasks on development of written word processing, above an important effect of school class and socio-economic level.

Publications:

Leybaert, J., Alegria, J., Deltour, J.-J. & Skinkel, R. (1994). Projection des habiletes linguistiques et metalinguistiques mesurees en 3ème maternelle sur le developpement de la lecture et de l´ecriture au cours des l´ère et 2ème annees primaire. In: J. Gregoire & B. Pierart (Eds.), Evaluer les troubles de la lecture. Bruxelles: De Boeck-Wesmael, pp. 147 - 172.

A paper on the word reading and word spelling data of the 2nd and 4th grade is in preparation.

C

Croatia

Principal investigator(s):

Mira Cudina-Obradovic

Address: University of Zagreb

E-mail-address of the contact-person: jobradov@mail.tel.hr

Title of study:

Social origins of children´s cognitive functioning.

Key words:

follow-up study determinants of reading achievement phonological sensitivity SES

Beginning date of study (month, year): 04-94

Date of latest data collection (month, year): in progress

Number of completed waves: 2

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 5

Time interval between waves (average): 1 yr.

Maximum sample size: 119

Size of core sample: 119

Age range at first data collection: 6 - 7 yrs.

Data computerized? yes

Are data accessible to other researchers? no

Type of study:

Correlation study: yes

Intervention study: no

Other:

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups:

Type of treatment group(s):

No. of control groups:

Type of control group(s):

Duration of intervention (weeks or month):

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month):

Test instruments:

Abstract:

A follow-up research was planned and performed among the pre-school children just before entering the 1st grade in the city of Zagreb, Croatia.

Several aims of the research were defined:

(1) to find out pre-school (and out-of-school) determinants of reading achievement, determinants being defined as: pre-school and out-of-school reading practice, child's cognitive functioning and child's pre-school phonological sensitivity

Other (intervening) variables were defined as SES (father's and mother's level of schooling taken separately), economic standing of the family (teacher's rating), child's self-perception (Harter & Pike, 1983).

(2) to find out how SES of the family is influencing the pre-school and school child's cognitive functioning and phonological sensitivity as the distal influences on reading achievement.

(3) To find out how initial (pre-school) literacy influences future school success especially in the light of parental characteristics and parental involvement

(4) To find out relationship between pre-school literacy and numeracy development and the influence of these on future success of children

(5) To find out successful and unsuccessful paths of advancement in the lower elementary school (1st to 4th grade) taking into account distal and proximal influences.

Main conclusions:

Reading accuracy and reading rate were the least predicted criteria, only up to 20% of common variance was found between the predictors and outcomes. For the reading comprehension criterion only a third (30%) of common variance was found. The criterion reading fluency had almost half (50%) of common variance with the used predictors, the biggest contribution coming from parental involvement. The biggest portion of the variance of obtained grade criteria was explained by used predictors (64%), and although the biggest contribution came from parental coaching block, other two blocks, especially cognitive functioning, contributed a considerable portion of variance of the results. The pre-school phonological functions contributed less than expected to overall reading efficiency criteria, the biggest contribution being in reading accuracy, the most important being phoneme segmentation.

It was obvious from the results that both mother's and father's schooling had and influence on child's cognitive outcomes and school progress. It was the high mother's schooling that was of specific importance for child's pre-school literacy (pre-writing), reading comprehension and phonological skills (onset and rime blending). But the influence on other cognitive outcomes was evenly distributed between mother and father. Both mother's and father's schooling were important for child's grade in language, while father's schooling had more importance in child's GPA. The most surprising result of the study was that both father's and mother's schooling had an independent influence on child's visual short-term memory (irrespectively of child's intelligence and mother's engagement).

C

Croatia

Principal investigator(s):

Geza Dudas

Address: Poliklinika SUVAG

E-mail-address of the contact-person: gezad@knjiga.pedos.hr

Title of study:

Predicting acquirement of reading skills

Key words:

Acquisition of literacy prediction of reading and spelling

Beginning date of study (month, year): 09-82

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 09-85

Number of completed waves: 2

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 2

Time interval between waves (average): 3 yrs.

Maximum sample size: 42

Size of core sample: 32

Age range at first data collection: 6;3 - 7;2 yrs.

Data computerized? no

Are data accessible to other researchers? no

Type of study:

Correlation study: yes

Intervention study: no

Other:

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups:

Type of treatment group(s):

No. of control groups:

Type of control group(s):

Duration of intervention (weeks or month):

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month):

Test instruments:

Abstract:

In order to predict reading success six tests were administered to a sample of 32 first grade pupils. The set of predictors consisted of: 1) School Readiness Test (I. Tolicic), 2) Bender Gestalt Test (Koppitz Developmental Scoring System), 3) Articulation Test (D. Vuletic), 4) Articulation Test (S. Vasic), 5) Unsystematic Errors of Articulation Test (constructed by the author), 6) Test for Analysis and Synthesis of Words and Sounds (constructed by the author).

Reading success, which was a criterion variable, was assessed at the beginning of the fourth grade.

The results of the regression analysis showed that School Readiness Test, Bender Gestalt Test, Unsystematic Errors of Articulation Test and Test for the Analysis and Synthesis of Words and Sounds relate to successful learning to read. However, the two tests for diagnosis of systematic dyslalia (Vuletic Articulation Test and Vasic Articulation Test) have no predictive value for reading achievement.

Publications:

Dudas, G. (1986). Predicting Acquirement of reading Skills. Defektologija, 22, 1986,2, 19-27.

C

Croatia

Principal investigator(s):

Svjetlana Kolic-Vehovec

Address: University of Rijeka

E-mail-address of the contact-person: skolic@human.pefri.hr

Title of study:

Phonological awareness and learning to read.

Key words:

phonological awareness reading acquisition

Beginning date of study (month, year): 05-93

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 05-96

Number of completed waves: 4

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 4

Time interval between waves (average): 1 yr.

Maximum sample size: 50

Size of core sample: 44

Age range at first data collection: 6;0 - 6;6 yrs.

Data computerized? yes

Are data accessible to other researchers? yes

Type of study:

Correlation study: yes

Intervention study: no

Other:

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups:

Type of treatment group(s):

No. of control groups:

Type of control group(s):

Duration of intervention (weeks or month):

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month):

Test instruments:

Abstract:

The aim of the study was to examine the relationship between development of phonological awareness and acquisition of reading skill in children on the beginning of schooling. The study began with 50 pre-school children and ended with 44 children at the end of third grade. They were first tested in kindergarten four months before beginning the school. Phonological awareness test and reading test were administered. Only fifteen children were identified as readers and they also had developed phonemic segmentation and blending, and partially developed skill of deletion of first and last phoneme. Only some non-readers had rudimentary developed phonemic segmentation and blending, and rest of them had none of phonological awareness. The second measurement was conducted after five months on the beginning of the first grade. Non-readers developed slightly phonological segmentation and blending, but readers approached ceiling almost all aspects of phonological awareness except skill to displace phonemes. At the end of first grade the children were tested again. All children mastered phonemic segmentation and blending. Pre-school readers mastered also phoneme deletion and approached ceiling in phoneme substitution, and pre-school non-readers only partially developed phoneme deletion and substitution. Pre-school readers read more than twofold faster than pre-school non-readers did. Deletion of first phoneme measured before and at the beginning of first grade was best predictor of reading at the end of first grade. The last measurement was conducted at the end of third grade. All children mastered all aspect of phonological awareness except phoneme displacement, and phonological awareness was no long good predictor of reading. Pre-school readers still read faster and more accurate than pre-school non-readers.

Publications:

C

Croatia

Principal investigator(s):

Karol Visinko

Hajdi Matijevic

Dubravka Tezak

Address: University of Rijeka

E-mail-address of the contact-person: karol.visinko@ri.tel.hr

Title of study:

Reception of the Croatian children´s story.

Key words:

Reading comprehension

Beginning date of study (month, year): 10-97

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 03-99

Number of completed waves: 2

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 2

Time interval between waves (average): 1 yr.

Maximum sample size: 1034

Size of core sample: 315

Age range at first data collection: 8 - 12 yrs.

Data computerized? yes

Are data accessible to other researchers? no

Type of study:

Correlation study: yes

Intervention study: no

Other: applied research - major field: Humanities studies - field: philology - branch: literally science – subbranch: Croatian children´s story and primary school teaching of Croatian language and literature (field of didactics/methodics)

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups:

Type of treatment group(s):

No. of control groups:

Type of control group(s):

Duration of intervention (weeks or month):

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month):

Test instruments:

There are 6 types of questionnaires. Every one of them is examining the interviewers' attitude to children story. Some of the questions are common for all interviewers. They refer to the subjective attitude toward children story (remembering stories of the own childhood, status and importance of stories in the own childhood)

Abstract:

The project is initiated because of the need for a systematic research of Croatian children's stories especially those of the receptive and interpretative nature. The components of the three-years project are:

Poetical World in a children's story, especially the subject-matter and expression in "Price iz davnine" Ivane Brlic-Mazuranic

Documentary elements and poetical elements in animalistic stories

Journalistic and scientifically popular style in children's story.

The research is based on observation of subject-matter and expression of chosen types of stories and on its use in literal-lingual education of children. Work on this project contributes to research of national values in field of Croatian language and literature. Literal substance is researched and valued by literal science methods and in a direct use in primary school and out of school practice, an interpretative analytic and problematical-creative approach is used.

In the first year of the research, we have managed to collect and study all the relevant literature. In the three primary schools of Primorsko-goranska county we have conducted an initial exam concerning the attitude toward children story. It included teachers, scholars and their parents. Because of the shown interest, we have decided to include in this research also educators, pre-school age children's parents and teacher studies' students.

It is now the second year of research in which we analyse the reception of chosen Croatian children stories, scholars' impressions and understandings. In the same year, we will also analyse scholars' written compositions.

Publications:

Suvremena hrvatska djecja prica (Contemporary Croatian children story) Rijec, br. 4/1, Hrvatsko filološko društvo - Podruznica u Rijeci, Rijeka, 1998.

Interes za djecju pricu (Interest for children story), u zborniku "Kako razvijati kulturu citanja", Knjiznice Grada Zagreba - Hrvatski centar za djecju knjigu - Hrvatska sekcija IBBY-a, Zagreb, 1999.

Umjetnicki tekst (prica) i drugi mediji (The artistic text (story) and other media), u zborniku "Likovna komunikacija u teoriji i praksi predškolskog odgoja", Odjel za odgoj i školstvo Grada Opatije, Opatija, 1999.

C

Czech Republic

Principal investigator(s):

Zdenek Matejcek

Jaroslav Sturma

Marie Vagnerova

Olga Zelinkova

Zdenek Zlab

Address: Pedagogical consulting center

E-mail-address of the contact-person: Fax. 004202 6913511

Title of study:

Evaluation of the efficiency of reading in the Czech Republic

Key words:

diagnosis of dyslexia

Beginning date of study (month, year): 10-68

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 03-95

Number of completed waves: 4

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 4

Time interval between waves (average): 1968-1984-1985-1994

Maximum sample size: 5265

Size of core sample: 2497

Age range at first data collection: 7 – 14 yrs.

Data computerized? yes

Are data accessible to other researchers? yes

Type of study:

Correlation study: yes

Intervention study: no

Other: standardization of tests of reading

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups:

Type of treatment group(s):

No. of control groups:

Type of control group(s):

Duration of intervention (weeks or month):

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month):

Test instruments:

Abstract:

In the Czech Republic, evaluation of reading efficiency started in the year 1936. Standardisation and following restandardisations of norm-referenced reading tests, which are used to identify the group of individuals with dyslexia, was the aim of the longitudinal study from the years 1968 - 1995. The tests of reading are part of the battery of tests for the diagnosis of dyslexia.

5 265 children (for all waves), 7 to 14 years of age were examined in different parts of the Czech Republic. In the study, every child read the articles of increasing difficulty two time in the school year at least. The level of reading was evaluated concerning the speed, accuracy, technique of reading and analysis of the mistakes.

Conclusion are as follow : The children in the 80´ and 90´ read better then the children in the evaluation in the school year 1968/69. The level of reading improves mostly in the first three years. There are great differences between the children in every grade. In every grade are some students they need special help. Positive correlation between the level of reading and evaluation of teachers was evident. Analysis of mistakes shows that the most common mistakes is the addition or the omission of letters or syllables.

Publications:

Matejcek Z., Zlab Z. : Zkouška cteni, Psychodiagnosticke pomucky, Bratislava 1971

Matejcek Z., Šturma J., Vagnerova M., Zlab Z. : Zkouška cteni,

Psychodiagnosticke a didakticke testy, n.p., Bratislava 1987

Zelinkova O. : Hodnoceni úrovne cteni v Ceske republice, Sbornik Specificke

poruchy uceni 1997/98, Portal , s.18 - 26

C

Czech Republic

Principal investigator(s):

Vladimir Smekal

Jan Beran

Miroslava Novotna

Helena Klimusova

Address: Masaryk University of Brno

E-mail-address of the contact-person: novotna.m@jumbo.ped.muni.cz

Title of study:

Comparison of effectiveness of Obecna Schools (reformed) and Zakladni Schools (unreformed schools).

Key words:

school achievement didactic skills

Beginning date of study (month, year): 06-94

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 12-98

Number of completed waves: 5

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 5

Time interval between waves (average): 1 yr.

Maximum sample size: 1800

Size of core sample: 1800

Age range at first data collection: 7 yrs.

Data computerized? yes

Are data accessible to other researchers? yes

Type of study:

Correlation study: yes

Intervention study: no

Other: monitoring educational reforms in the postcommunist years

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups:

Type of treatment group(s):

No. of control groups:

Type of control group(s):

Duration of intervention (weeks or month):

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month):

Test instruments:

Abstract:

The fundamental aim of this longitudinal project was to compare the effectiveness of Obecna Schools, which followed a statutorily reformed curriculum and teaching method, with the unreformed Zakladni (primary) Schools. This was effected by annual comparisons of child intelligence, personality and didactic skills. Teacher personality was an independent variable. Sample consisted of Obecna and Zakladni Schools of rural and urban regions throughout the Czech Republic. Children were group-tested each year. In addition to my reading tests they completed semiprojective personality tests, mathematic tests, and some years IQ tests. Teachers completed semiprojective personality tests, and some years, answered questions about the management of their schools. Results were mainly inconclusive, but there was some evidence that children in reformed schools use language more creatively.

Publications:

Beran, J., Smekal, V. & Klimusova, H. (1994). Obecna skola po prvnim roce overovani. Report to Ministry of Schools, Czech Republic. Brno: CDVU 1994.

Beran, J., Smekal, V. & Klimusova, H. (1995). Obecna skola po druhem roce overovani. Report to Ministry of Schools, Czech Republic. Brno: CDVU 1995.

Beran, J., Smekal, V., Machalova, M., Klimusova, H., Novotna, M. & Vanurova, M. (1996). Obecna skola po tretim roce overovani. Report to Ministry of Schools, Czech Republic. Brno: CDVU 1996.

Beran, J., Smekal, V., Machalova, M., Klimusova, H., Novotna, M. & Vanurova, M. (1997). Obecna skola po ctvrtem roce overovani. Report to Ministry of Schools, Czech Republic. Brno: CDVU 1997.

Beran, J., Smekal, V., Klimusova, H., Novotna, M. & Vanurova, M. (1998). Obecna skola po patem roce overovani. Report to Ministry of Schools, Czech Republic. Brno: CDVU 1998.

Novotna, M. & Gray, H. (1997). Research on reading skills. Report to the international Conference, Diagnostic 1997, Czech Republic, University of Ostrava, Pedagogical Faculty. September 1997.

Novotna, M., Smekal, V., Beran, J., Klimusova, H. & Gray, H. (1998). Educational reforms in the Czech Republic. Report to the international Conference of the Study Group Education in Russia the independence States East Europ. University of London School of Slavonic Studies. November 1998.

C

Denmark

Principal investigator(s):

Ina Borstroem

Dorthe Klint Petersen

Carsten Elbro

Address: University of Copenhagen

E-mail-address of the contact-person: dkp@cphling.dk

Title of study:

Initial reading materials and the variation in children´s reading abilities

Key words:

reading instruction reading acquisition

Beginning date of study (month, year): 05-95

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 06-98

Number of completed waves: 7

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 7

Time interval between waves (average): 6 mths.

Maximum sample size: 3532

Size of core sample: 1434

Age range at first data collection: 5;5 - 7;5 yrs.

Data computerized? yes

Are data accessible to other researchers? yes

Type of study:

Correlation study: yes

Intervention study: no

Other:

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups:

Type of treatment group(s):

No. of control groups:

Type of control group(s):

Duration of intervention (weeks or month):

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month):

Test instruments:

Abstract:

The aim of the project was to contribute to an understanding of the extraordinary large variation in reading abilities among Danish third graders (cf. The IEA study, 1992).

Approximately 200 school classes are being followed with biannual group measures of language, IQ, reading and spelling. The independent variables include aspects of reading materials, teaching methods, and teacher qualifications. Data are collected in collaboration with local reading consultants and psychologists.

Publications:

Borstrøm, I., Petersen, D.K. & Elbro, C. (1997). Midtvejsrapport fra projekt om valg af

læsebogssystem og den første læseudvikling. Projekt Læsning: Københavns Universitet.

I

Denmark

Principal investigator(s):

Carsten Elbro

Ina Borstroem

Dorthe K. Petersen

Address: University of Copenhagen

E-mail-address of the contact-person: ce@cphling.dk

Title of study:

The Copenhagen dyslexia study.

Key words:

dyslexia phonological representations phonological recoding skills

Beginning date of study (month, year): 07-93

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 09-97

Number of completed waves: 4

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 4

Time interval between waves (average): 1 yr.

Maximum sample size: 160

Size of core sample: 150

Age range at first data collection: 5;5 - 6;5

Data computerized? yes

Are data accessible to other researchers? yes

Type of study:

Correlation study: yes

Intervention study: yes

Other:

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups: 1

Type of treatment group(s):

• Initial phoneme analysis in children of genetic risk of dyslexia

No. of control groups: 2

Type of control group(s):

• No treatment, at risk & non at risk children

Duration of intervention (weeks or month): 17 weeks

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month): 2,5 hrs./week

Test instruments:

Abstract:

This paper presents results from a longitudinal study of children of dyslexic and of normally reading parents. The children were followed from the beginning of kindergarten (at the age of six, one year before reading instruction in Denmark) until the beginning of the second grade. Children of dyslexic parents were found to have an increased risk of dyslexia (a 4.3 odds ratio) when dyslexia was defined as poor phonological recoding (poor reading of non-words, and pseudo-homophones of real words). All language measures in kindergarten were statistically significant predictors of dyslexia. Logistic regression analyses with backwards stepwise selection indicated that three measures contributed independently to the prediction of dyslexia: letter naming, phoneme identification, and distinctness of phonological representations. The measure of distinctness of phonological representations also contributed significantly to the prediction of poor phoneme awareness in grade two - even when differences in early syllable and phoneme awareness, articulation, and productive and receptive vocabulary were accounted for. The results suggest that the quality of phonological representations in the mental lexicon is a determinant of the development of both segmental (e.g. phoneme) awareness and of the acquisition of phonological recoding skills in reading.

Publications:

Elbro, C. (1998). Reading-listening discrepancy definitions of dyslexia. In P. Reitsma & L. Verhoeven (Eds.), Problems and interventions in literacy development. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Elbro, C., Nielsen, I. & Petersen, D.K. (1994). Dyslexia in adults: Evidence for deficits in non-word reading and in the phonological representation of lexical items. Annals of Dyslexia, 44, 205-226.

Elbro, C. (1996). Early linguistic abilities and reading development: A review and a hypothesis. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 8, 453-485.

Elbro, C., Borstroem, I. & Petersen, D.K. (1998). Predicting dyslexia from kindergarten. The importance of distinctness of phonological representations of lexical items. Reading Research Quarterly, 33 (1), 36-60.

Elbro, C. (1998). When reading is "readn" or somthn. Distinctness of phonological representations of lexical items in normal and disabled readers. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 39, 149-153.

Borstroem, I. & Elbro, C. (1997). Prevention of dyslexia in kindergarten: Effects of phoneme awareness training with children of dyslexic parents. In C. Hulme & M. Snowling (Eds.), Dyslexia: Biology, Cognition and Intervention (pp. 235-253). London: Whurr.

I

Finland

Principal investigator(s):

Taru Haeyrinen

Marit Korkman

Silve Serenius-Sirje

Katri Wahlman-Neuronen

Liisa Klenberg

Kaisa Peltomaa

Address:

E-mail-address of the contact-person: marit.korkman@skynet.be

Title of study:

Neuropsychological intervention of dyslexia

Key words:

Prevention of dyslexia neuropsychological intervention treatment of dyslexia

Beginning date of study (month, year): 1991

Date of latest data collection (month, year): ongoing

Number of completed waves: 2

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 2

Time interval between waves (average): 2 yrs.

Maximum sample size: 46+80

Size of core sample: 46+80

Age range at first data collection: 7 - 13 yrs.

Data computerized? yes

Are data accessible to other researchers? yes

Type of study:

Correlation study: no

Intervention study: yes

Other:

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups: 2

Type of treatment group(s):

• dyslexic children receiving neuropsychological intervention

No. of control groups: 2

Type of control group(s):

• dyslexic children not receiving neuropsychological intervention

Duration of intervention (weeks or month): 1 - 3 yrs.

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month): once/week

Test instruments:

Abstract:

The aim of this ongoing study is to examine the effects of neuropsychological intervention of children with dyslexia and verbal impairment underlying dyslexia. The project consists of two parts, one retrospective and one prospective. In the retrospective study 23 children with persistent dyslexia, who had received individual neuropsychological intervention, were assessed. Age at the start of the treatment varied from 7 to 12 years. A control group was formed of 23 dyslexic children for whom neuropsychological intervention had not been available. The treatment aimed at improving linguistic skills, such as phonological analysis of words, decoding written text, reading and spelling of irregular words, and verbal expression, and at improving metalinguistic skills, working habits, self-esteem, and own activity. The treatment was provided once a week for 1-3 years. Pre- and post-treatment comparisons demonstrated that the treatment group improved significantly more on the WISC-R, FSIQ, VIQ and PIQ than the control group. The parents of the children of the treatment group reported marked improvement in the children’s ability to work independently, and school grades improved significantly.

In a prospective study children who are provided neuropsychological intervention for severe dyslexia undergo assessments of neurolinguistic capacities underlying, psychometric intelligence, and of reading and spelling, before and after treatment. Matched dyslexic children who do not obtain neuropsychological intervention form a control group. So far 49 children have received treatment whereas 13 are included in the control group. The aim is to obtain 60 children in the treatment group and 20 children in the control group. Intervention methods are the same as above.

Publications:

Korkman, M. & Haeyrinen, T. (1999). Neuropsychological intervention of dyslexia and verbal learning disorders. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 5, 157.

Haeyrinen, T. & Korkman, M. (1997). Oppimishaerioeisten lasten neuropsykologinen kuntoutus (Intervention of children with specific learning disorders. In Finnish). In: M. Korkman & K. Peltomaa (Eds.). Lasten neuropsykologinen kuntoutus (Neuropsychological intervention of children. In Finnish). Helsinki: PJK Test House.

Korkman, M. & Peltomaa (Eds.). Lasten neuropsykologinen kuntoutus (Neuropsychological intervention of children. In Finnish). Helsinki: PJK Test House.

Korkman, M., Kirk, U., Kemp, S.L. (1998). NEPSY. A developmental neuropsychological assessment. San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation.

Haeyrinen, T., Serenius-Sirve, S., Korkman, M. (1999). Lukilasse. Lukemisen, kirjoittamisen ja laskemisen seulontatestistoe peruskoulun ala-asteen luokille 1-6. (Screening test of reading, spelling, and arithmetics for basic school grades 1-6). Helsinki: Psykologien kustannus

Korkman, M., Kirk, U., & Kemp, S.L. (in press). Developmental assessment of neuropsychological function with the aid of the NEPSY. In: A. Kaufman & N. Kaufman (Eds.). Specific Learning Disabilities: Psychological assessment and evaluation. Cambridge University Press.

Korkman, M. (in press). Applying Luria's diagnostic principles in the neuropsychological assessment of children. Neuropsychology Review.

C

Finland

Principal investigator(s):

Leena Holopainen

Timo Ahonen

Address: University of Jyvaeskylae

E-mail-address of the contact-person: lholopai@nmi.jyu.fi

Title of study:

The development of reading and reading-related skills and the use of analogy-models from pre-school to the end of the second school year.

Key words:

phonological awareness reading acquisition reading-related skills analogy models

Beginning date of study (month, year): 03-97

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 05-99

Number of completed waves: 4 for all (10 for half of the subjects)

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 5 for all (11 for half of the subjects)

Time interval between waves (average): 6 mths.

Maximum sample size: 90

Size of core sample: one part (the analogy models) had only 48 subjects

Age range at first data collection: 6;4 - 7;4 yrs.

Data computerized? yes

Are data accessible to other researchers? no

Type of study:

Correlation study: yes

Intervention study: no

Other:

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups:

Type of treatment group(s):

No. of control groups:

Type of control group(s):

Duration of intervention (weeks or month):

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month):

Test instruments:

Abstract:

(The abstract concerns the first part of the study: Two alternative models of reading acquisition at pre-school age). The relationship between reading accuracy and reading related skills were examined of 91 Finnish speaking pre-schoolers (ranging in age from 6;4 to 7;4 years) by two structural equation models. The special interest of the models was the connection between children´s reading and phonological awareness skills. The main results of our study show, that in a very transparent language like Finnish, the model emphasizing certain sensitivity to phonological structure of the word being prerequisite for learning to read fitted to this data very well. The other model, which also was theoretically and statistically very accessible, suggested that learning to read would be the cause of phonemic awareness. The results of this current study suggest that reading acquisition in Finnish at pre-school age has several similarities with other languages, but also differences, that could be language-specific and need further investigations.

Publications:

C

Finland

Principal investigator(s):

Marja-Liisa Julkunen

Address: Joensuu universitet

E-mail-address of the contact-person: marja-liisa.julkunen.@joensuu.fi

Title of study:

Seven studies on reading.

Key words:

learning to read reading comprehension academic achievements

Beginning date of study (month, year): 08-91

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 08-94

Number of completed waves: 9

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 9

Time interval between waves (average): grade 1, 2, 6, 9, 12 and 2 yrs. after completion of school

Maximum sample size: 790

Size of core sample: 275

Age range at first data collection: 7

Data computerized? yes

Are data accessible to other researchers? yes

Type of study:

Correlation study: yes

Intervention study: no

Other: follow-up, developmental

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups:

Type of treatment group(s):

No. of control groups:

Type of control group(s):

Duration of intervention (weeks or month):

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month):

Test instruments:

Abstract:

The purpose of the first study was to investigate learning to read, to compare the learning processes in different teaching methods, and to acquire information on children who had learnt to read before school.

The results showed that the pupils learn to read a short text mechanically correctly in the course of the first grade, they are able to answer reading comprehension questions requiring literal understanding. They also learn to make simple inferences from the texts and to relate the texts to their own experiences. There are no differences between the methods in teaching reading comprehension. The early readers have had more contacts with books than those pupils who had learnt to read at school.

The purpose of the second study was to investigate second graders’ mechanical reading ability and reading comprehension skills, rereading interests, and to compare the reading comprehension skills in grade 2 to academic achievements in the theoretical subjects in grade 3. Already in the autumn term almost all second graders are able to read and literally understand simple texts that are related to their sphere of life. Part of the pupils have advanced in reading comprehension to a level where they have realized that reading is a way of finding out things for themselves if they read carefully. The early readers can make inferences from texts without difficulties. Second graders’ reading interest is only emerging. At grade 3 the early readers do significantly much better in the theoretical subjects than those who have learnt to read at school.

The purpose of the third study was to investigate sixth-graders’ skills in reading factual texts and fiction, their voluntary reading and factors associated with reading comprehension skills.

The results indicated that sixth-graders are able to read textbook texts and that they comprehend the significance of textual context. Fiction proved to be more difficult. The significance of reading comprehension skills for academic achievement was clearly demonstrated. Reading seemed to be a popular hobby.

The purpose of the fourth study was to investigate the Finnish comprehensive school leavers’ reading skills, their voluntary reading and to outline the development of reading comprehension through the school years.

The Finnish comprehensive school leavers can cope with factual texts quite well. The results in the fictive text are not so positive; when the literal understanding is required, the students do well. Inferential or creative reading is difficult for part of the students. Only some 10 per cent of the students have reading as a serious hobby. In comparing the development of reading comprehension of the three groups (early readers, beginning readers, non-readers) in fiction texts through grades 1, 2, 6, and 9, LISREL analysis demonstrated the level of reading skills and time have a significant interaction effect. The repeated measures SIMPLEX analysis that was conducted to elaborate the results demonstrated that each group follow separate paths throughout the comprehensive school. Reading comprehension develops so that the paths do not coincide.

The sixth study is the final part of the research project: it focuses on the 275 upper secondary school leavers. The data consists of students’ upper secondary school certificates, and matriculation examination results. In addition, the students’ matriculation essays and their answers in the humanities/science component of the examination were analysed in terms of thinking levels, which were assumed to reflect the students’ reading comprehension skills.

The earlier reading comprehension results correlate slightly with the school leaving marks. Those who could read before school went to upper secondary school more frequently than those who learn to read at school. They also obtained better upper secondary leaving certificates than the non-readers. The upper secondary school leavers generally use serial thinking.

The purpose of seventh study was to investigate Finnish young people's reading and literature as a hobby, its beginning and directions. The interviews consist of 20 comprehensive schools leavers and 20 upper secondary school leavers.

The results demonstrated that reading and literature were very important in childhood and in the lower stage of the comprehensive school but later on other hobbies replaced them or interest in voluntary reading simply decreased. The results suggests that home and parents’ reading habits have a more important role than school in the development of voluntary reading. The significance of literacy is in that early readers are slightly more likely to become readers of literature that those who learnt to read at school.

Publications:

Julkunen, Marja-Liisa (1984) Learning to Read and Teaching of Reading. University of Joensuu. Publications in Education, 1 (in Finnish)

Julkunen, Marja-Liisa (1986) Second graders’ reading skills in relation to third graders’ academic achievement. University of Joensuu. Research Reports of the Faculty of Education, 13 (in Finnish)

Julkunen, Marja-Liisa (1987) Sixth graders’ reading comprehension skills. University of Joensuu. Research Reports of the Faculty of Education, 18 (in Finnish)

Julkunen, Marja-Liisa (1994) Development of Reading Skills in the Finnish Comprehensive School. University of Joensuu. Research Reports of the Faculty of Education, 57 (in English)

Julkunen, Marja-Liisa (1995) Literacy and Educational Career. University of Joensuu. Research Reports of the Faculty of Education, 59 (in Finnish)

Julkunen, Marja-Liisa (1997) On the way to literature. University of Joensuu. Research Reports of the Faculty of Education, 65 (in Finnish)

I

Finland

Principal investigator(s):

Ann-Christina Kjeldsen

Pekka Niemi

Ake Olofsson

Address: Kyrkby Hoegstadieskola

E-mail-address of the contact-person: ackjeldsen@alcom.aland.fi

Title of study:

Effects of training phonological awareness - evaluation of a metalinguistic training program for pre-school children.

Key words:

phonological awareness metalinguistic training

Beginning date of study (month, year): 09-97

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 04-99

Number of completed waves: 4

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 7

Time interval between waves (average): 6 mths. between first 4 waves; 1 yr. between last 3 waves

Maximum sample size: 209

Size of core sample: 196

Age range at first data collection: approx. 6 yrs.

Data computerized? yes

Are data accessible to other researchers? yes

Type of study:

Correlation study: no

Intervention study: yes

Other:

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups: 9

Type of treatment group(s):

• kindergarten with metalinguistic training program (Bornholm)

No. of control groups: 12

Type of control group(s):

• kindergarten with ordinary program

Duration of intervention (weeks or month): 6 mths. (kindergarten) / 8 weeks in grade 1

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month): every day in kindergarten (84), 3 days/week in grade 1 (24)

Test instruments:

Abstract:

Early phonological awareness seems to be necessary for the acquisition of a successful reading and spelling ability. Lundberg and his colleagues demonstrated with their study on Bornholm that systematic phonological training in kindergarten stimulates and effects children's phonological awareness and this fact influences the reading and spelling ability. This effect seems to be more obvious regarding children at risk.

The aim of this study is an attempt to repeat the same interventional program that was carried out on Bornholm, Denmark and to evaluate the effects of the intervention. The training program consists of metalinguistic games and exercises and is given to pre-school children during their last year at kindergarten for about 7 months 15-20 minutes daily. The program continues during 8 weeks in the beginning of Grade 1 at school.

Will the metalinguistic games serve a purpose also now 15 years later on the Aland islands, a Swedish speaking part of Finland? Is there a need of training phonological awareness following a structural program, when phonological awareness is a quite well known concept among kindergarten teachers and primary school teachers? Is there something in these linguistic everyday games for the pre-school children to benefit from , when some of them already know a lot of letters and are beginning to read at this age?

The experimental group consists of 108 children, 50 girls and 58 boys, from 9 separate kindergartens. The control group consists of 101 children, 50 girls and 51 boys, from 12 separate kindergartens. All kindergartens belonging to the study are situated on the Aland islands with no long distances from each other.

The longitudinal study will follow the pre-school children up to Grade 4 at school.

Publications:

I

Finland

Principal investigator(s):

Marit Korkman

Kaisa Peltomaa

Address:

E-mail-address of the contact-person: marit.korkman@skynet.be

Title of study:

Preventive treatment of dyslexia by a pre-school training program for children with language impairments.

Key words:

prevention of dyslexia treatment of dyslexia follow-up study prediction of reading and spelling

Beginning date of study (month, year): 09-89

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 05-92

Number of completed waves: 2

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 2

Time interval between waves (average): 3 yrs.

Maximum sample size: 92

Size of core sample: 46

Age range at first data collection: 5;0 - 5;11 yrs.

Data computerized? yes

Are data accessible to other researchers? yes

Type of study:

Correlation study: no

Intervention study: yes

Other:

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups: 1

Type of treatment group(s):

• children with language disorder (pre-school level); neuropsychological treatment

No. of control groups: 1

Type of control group(s):

• children with language disorder (pre-school level); traditional treatment

Duration of intervention (weeks or month): 9 mths.

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month): 1 hr./week

Test instruments:

Abstract:

Children with language impairments are at great risk for dyslexia. The aim of this study was to create and evaluate methods of preventive treatment of dyslexia for children with language impairment. The study was performed as a controlled experiment in which 26 male children with language impairments were assigned to a pre-school treatment. The treatment consisted of exercises of 1) phonemic awareness (word segmentation, rhyming and alliteration, detecting phonemic errors in familiar rhymes or songs, syllable and sound blending, etc.); 2) grapheme-phoneme conversion (teaching the sounds of the letters in the children's own names, replacing the beginning letter with another, putting together and reading two -letter nonsense syllables of letters in the names, etc.); and 3) rapid name retrieval (naming size, colour, and shape rapidly, as in 'little red ball', 'big blue car', etc.). The treatment took place in small-group sessions once a week the year before the children started school. At the end of the first school year, the children's performance on four tests of reading and spelling were compared to those of a control group consisting of 20 male children with language impairments who had received traditional treatment, mostly speech therapy. The experimental group significantly outperformed the control group on three of the four reading and spelling tests. In order to analyze the effects of the treatment more closely, 14 neuropsychological tests were administered at pre- and post-treatment assessments. The experimental group improved significantly on four tests of language and attention whereas the control group did not improve significantly on any test. In all, the treatment had clear effects on the acquisition of reading and spelling, and on basic neurocognitive capacities, and significantly reduced the risk of dyslexia in children with language disorders.

Publications:

Korkman, M. (1995). A test profile approach in the analysis of cognitive disorders in children - experiences of the NEPSY. In: M.G. Tramontana & S.R. Hooper (Eds.). Advances in child neuropsychology. Vol. 3. New York: Springer-Verlag.

Korkman, M. (1999). Specific language impairment. Subtypes and assessment. In F. Fabbro (Ed.): Concise enclyclopedia of language pathology and linguistics. Elsevier.

Korkman, M., Kirk, U., Kemp, S.L. (1998). NEPSY. A developmental neuropsychological assessment. San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation.

Korkman, M. & Peltomaa, K.A. (1993). Preventive treatment of dys-lexia by a pre-school training program for children with lan-guage impairments. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 22, 277-287.

Peltomaa, A. K. & Korkman, M. (1995). Kieku. Lukemisen ja kirjoittamisen valmiuksien kielellinen kuntoutus esikouluiaessae (A pre-school program for enhancing the prerequisits for acquisition of reading and spelling. In Finnish) Helsinki: PJK Test House

C

Finland

Principal investigator(s): Marit Korkman

Paula Haekkinen-Riku

Address:

E-mail-address of the contact-person: marit.korkman@skynet.be

Title of study:

Classification of developmental language disorders (DLD), prediction of dyslexic spelling problems, and follow-up.

Key words:

DLD (Developmental Language Disorder) SLI (Specific Language Impairment) prediction of reading and spelling follow-up study

Beginning date of study (month, year): 09-84

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 05-88

Number of completed waves: 2

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 2

Time interval between waves (average): 3 yrs.

Maximum sample size: 80

Size of core sample: 40

Age range at first data collection: 6;0 - 7;9 yrs.

Data computerized? yes

Are data accessible to other researchers? no

Type of study:

Correlation study: yes

Intervention study: no

Other: prediction study

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups:

Type of treatment group(s):

No. of control groups:

Type of control group(s):

Duration of intervention (weeks or month):

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month):

Test instruments:

Abstract:

The aims of the study were to see 1) whether subtypes of DLD could be identified in kindergarten students with DLD, with the aid of neurocognitive measures; 2) whether some of the subtypes were particularly predictive of dyslexic learning problems. Eighty children with DLD were examined with 18 language tests, mainly derived from a neuropsychological assessment called NEPSY. The children were 6-0 to 7-9 years old and attended kindergarten. The test profiles of the first 40 children, Group 1, were utilized for the elaboration of a classification of DLD. The test profiles were grouped into five subgroups with the aid of a Q-type factor analysis. The classification was modified to suit clinical application, by collapsing two pairs of subgroups. The resulting categories were called: The Global Subtype, the Specific Dyspraxia Subtype, and the Specific Comprehension Subtype. It was predicted that spelling problems, indicative of dyslexia, would occur in the Global and the Specific Comprehension Subtypes, but not in the subgroup Specific Dyspraxia Subtype. A follow-up was performed three years later. The hit rate was found to be 80.5.%. The coverage of the classification was tried out on the 40 children examined later, Group 2, and was found to be 85%. Five outliers (12.5%) seemed to form an additional category, called the Specific Dysnomia Subtype. Follow-up data were not obtained for the children from Group 2.

Publications:

Korkman, M. (1988). NEPSU - Lasten neuropsykologinen tutkimus. Uudistettu versio ( A neuropsychological assessment for children. In Finnish). Helsinki: Psykologien Kustannus.

Korkman, M. (1995). A test profile approach in the analysis of cognitive disorders in children - experiences of the NEPSY. Teo-ksessa: M.G. Tramontana & S.R. Hooper (Eds.). Advances in child neuropsychology. Vol. 3. New York: Springer-Verlag.

Korkman, M. (1999). Specific language impairment. Subtypes and assessment. In F. Fabbro (Ed.): Concise enclyclopedia of language pathology and linguistics. Elsevier.

Korkman, M. (in press). Applying Luria's diagnostic principles in the neuropsychological assessment of children. Neuropsychology Review.

Korkman, M. & Haekkinen-Rihu, P. A new classification of develop-mental language disorders (DLD) (1994). Brain and Language, 47, 96-116.

Korkman, M., Kirk, U., Kemp, S.L. (1998). NEPSY. A developmental neuropsychological assessment. San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation.

Korkman, M., Kirk, U., & Kemp, S.L. (in press). Developmental assessment of neuropsychological function with the aid of the NEPSY. In: A. Kaufman & N. Kaufman (Eds.). Specific Learning Disabilities: Psychological assessment and evaluation. Cambridge University Press.

C

Finland

Principal investigator(s): Marit Korkman

Kati Airaksinen

Henna Pekkanen

Liisa Klenberg

Address:

E-mail-address of the contact-person: marit.korkman@skynet.be

Title of study:

Prediction of achievement in reading, spelling, and arithmetics from neurocognitive performance at kindergarten and pre-school age.

Key words:

prediction of reading and spelling development of reading and spelling skills

Beginning date of study (month, year): 09-94

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 05-98

Number of completed waves: 2

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 2

Time interval between waves (average): 3 yrs.

Maximum sample size: 96

Size of core sample: 96

Age range at first data collection: 4;0 - 6;11 yrs.

Data computerized? yes

Are data accessible to other researchers? yes

Type of study:

Correlation study: yes

Intervention study: no

Other: prediction study

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups:

Type of treatment group(s):

No. of control groups:

Type of control group(s):

Duration of intervention (weeks or month):

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month):

Test instruments:

Abstract:

The aim of the study was to select the best predictors of later achievement in reading, spelling and arithmetics from more than 30 neurocognitive measurements, obtained from assessments of kindergarten and pre-school students. 96 children were assessed with a comprehensive neuropsychological assessment (NEPSY) at the age of 4, 5, or 6 years. The NEPSY includes measures of attention and executive functions, language, sensorimotor functions, visuo-spatial functions, and memory and learning, and is now available in many languages. The children were followed-up three years later, and assessed with an achievement test of reading, spelling, and arithmetics. Preliminary data suggest that general verbal capacities, as evident in tests of verbal comprehension and learning, are the best predictors of reading and spelling in grade 3. Phonological awareness also predicts reading and spelling achievement significantly, but this capacity tends to be of an all-or-none type: once the child gets the idea the performance on this variable increases abruptly. The best predictor of mathematic performance in grade 3 was performance on a three-dimensional block construction task. Surprisingly, early motor capacities were strongly related to performance in reading, spelling and arithmetics in grade 1 and 2.

Publications:

Haeyrinen, T., Serenius-Sirve, S., Korkman, M. (1999). Lukilasse. Lukemisen, kirjoittamisen ja laskemisen seulontatestistoe peruskoulun ala-asteen luokille 1-6. (Screening test of reading, spelling, and arithmetics for basic school grades 1-6). Helsinki: Psykologien kustannus.

Korkman, M. (in press). Applying Luria's diagnostic principles in the neuropsychological assessment of children. Neuropsychology Review.

Korkman, M., Kirk, U., Kemp, S.L. (1998). NEPSY. A developmental neuropsychological assessment. San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation.

Korkman, M., Kirk, U., & Kemp, S.L. (in press). Developmental assessment of neuropsychological function with the aid of the NEPSY. In: A. Kaufman & N. Kaufman (Eds.). Specific Learning Disabilities: Psychological assessment and evaluation. Cambridge University Press.

I

Finland

Principal investigator(s):

Heikki Lyytinen

Timo Ahonen

Matti Leiwo

Paula Lyytinen

Address: University of Jyvaeskylae

E-mail-address of the contact-person: Hlyytinen@psyka.jyu.fi

Title of study:

Jyvaskyla Longitudinal study of Dyslexia (JLD)

Key words:

precursors of dyslexia children at risk for dyslexia reading and spelling phonological and orthographical skills brain recording (ERPs) cognitive and motor measures

Beginning date of study (month, year): 01-93

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 2006

Number of completed waves: >10 for many and 5 at minimum for the youngest (i.e. before the present age of the youngest – now of 3 year olds)

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): >15 for many and 10 at minimum for all (selective more intensive follow-up of those whose risk status is shown to be increasing). Part of the follow-up measures – like ERPs – can be performed for a subsample only.

Time interval between waves (average): 0,5 - 1 yr.

Maximum sample size: 2x100 families screened from more than 4000

Size of core sample: about 2x90

Age range at first data collection: 2 - 6 days

Data computerized? yes

Are data accessible to other researchers? yes

Type of study:

Correlation study: yes

Intervention study: yes

Other: used also for making preliminary validation of measures etc. of cognitive development

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups:

Not yet fully specified. At least single case experimental interventions will be done using multiple baseline designs. It is planned that the number of similarly performed single case studies will allow comparison of a number of subgroups of differentially expressed risk for dyslexia / and sequences of interventions with control groups.

Type of treatment group(s):

now under planning – interventions empasizing phonological and naming related skills (possibly combined and applied in counterbalanced orders)

No. of control groups:

Comparison will be based mainly on within subject designs, groups/subjects are working as controls for themselves in the time-series of repeated measures with interventions (before and after) with repetitions of interventions.

Type of control group(s):

the initiation times of the intervention may allow comparison between groups/subjects e.g. to no-treatment levels.

Duration of intervention (weeks or month): 3-5 times/week for 3-4 months (planned)

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month): 2-4 hrs./week

Measures and Assessment Procedures in the Jyvaeskylae Longitudinal

Study of Dyslexia

FORTHCOMING PHASES

ASSESSMENTS CONDUCTED ACCORDING TO GRADE LEVEL

Abstract:

The aim of the Jyvaeskylae prospective Longitudinal study of Dyslexia (JLD) is to search for precursors of dyslexia by following children with (N=100) and without (N=100) risk for dyslexia from birth to school age. At risk children are from families with dyslexic parent (and at least one of his/her close relative with dyslexia). The risk children were selected using two-stage questionnaire-based screening and extensive individual assessment using mainly on reading and spelling measures but complemented with tests assessing phonological and orthographic skills. The development of the children is assessed during 1-2 yearly visits to lab, 1-3 home/school visits and using questionnaires/checklists and video recordings with the help of parents. The age range at each moment of the whole sample is 3.5 years. The oldest children are now 6 years and the youngest assessed thus far 3 years old. The earliest results based on brain recording (ERPs) and head turn conditioning to assess categorical perception of speech sounds at six months age reveal consistent (between these measures) differences between the at risk and control groups. Also some language measures, like vocabulary growth at 3.5 years, maximum sentence length (2.5y), pseudoword repetition (3.5 y), Boston naming (3.5y) show statistically significant but small differences. Cognitive or motor measures have not revealed reliable differences before the age of 3.5 years but only part of the data have been analysed yet.

Publications:

I

Finland

Principal investigator(s):

Pekka Niemi

Marja Vauras

Address: University of Turku

E-mail-address of the contact-person: peknie@utu.fi

Title of study:

Decoding, comprehension and motivation from pre-school to grade 4.

Key words:

Decoding and word recognition spelling comprehension skills motivation metacognition writing ability

Beginning date of study (month, year): 03-92

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 05-97

Number of completed waves: 6

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 6

Time interval between waves (average): 1 yr.

Maximum sample size: 240

Size of core sample: 200

Age range at first data collection: 6;4 - 7;3

Data computerized? yes

Are data accessible to other researchers? yes

Type of study:

Correlation study: no

Intervention study: yes

Other:

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups: 4x1 (four interventions)

Type of treatment group(s):

• training in linguistic awareness, decoding, reading comprehension, metacognition, maths, EFL

No. of control groups: 6

Type of control group(s):

• placebo treatment

• no treatment

Duration of intervention (weeks or month): 6 to 13 weeks

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month): 4x20 min./week

Test instruments:

Abstract:

Aim of the study:

The purpose was to provide insight into the development of children’s cognitive skills, metacognition and motivation during the first years in the school. The primary interest focused on the bordering areas between the various skills. This is exemplified below.

Support domain: to be trained Target domain: to be improved

Linguistic awareness Word recognition (decoding)

Linguistic awareness Basic skills in mathematics

Decoding Spelling

Decoding Reading Comprehension

Reading comprehension Problem solving in math

Reading comprehension Productive writing

Reading comprehension Constructing knowledge

Constructing knowledge Skilled learning and conceptual change

Linguistic skills (in mother tongue) EFL

Interventions:

Effective intervention programmes were created in linguistic awareness, decoding, comprehension, metacognition and math. The interventions required no resources in addition to those already utilised by the school.

Training in linguistic awareness in grade 1 aimed to clarify the self-image of children-at-risk and to improve their knowledge of rhymes, words and syllables. The final target was phonological awareness. The transfer effects on decoding and spelling were positive, clearly exceeding those of traditional special education instruction.

In grade 2, a computer-assisted programme featured synthetic-speech feedback upon request, that is, when the reader encountered a decoding or comprehension obstacle. Clear-cut gains were observed in decoding and spelling but none in comprehension.

Training in comprehension and metacognition in grade 3 had a strong emphasis on verbal math problems. Children-at-risk showed significant gains which were qualified by a sex x domain interaction. Girls gained in mostly in reading and boys in math.

Intervention in English as a Second Language is still being analysed.

Main results:

Intervention based on phonological awareness showed the usual positive findings. Especially first-graders with inferior cognitive level benefited from training. Some of them also had extensive difficulties with comprehension, both while listening and reading. These children and a group of unexpected decoding failures participated in the computer-assisted decoding and comprehension training in grade 2. The intervention brought about sizeable gains in decoding and spelling but not in comprehension. The latter was explicitly dealt with in grade 3 together with verbal math problems. Now a motivational pattern started to emerge. The prognosis was good given that the child had a reasonable level of task-orientation to begin with. The prognosis became drastically poorer if social or ego-defensive orientation prevailed.

The results have been discussed in terms of persistent learning difficulties associated with the psycho-social vulnerability of the child, most commonly reflected as a motivational pattern not favourable to learning. If such a pattern does not exist, the intervention prognosis is invariably good.

Applications:

Centre for Learning Research at the University of Turku now disseminates a computer-assisted training programme for beginning readers, a learning game promoting mathematical problem-solving and reading comprehension as well as a number of diagnostic tests.

Publications:

Dufva, M. & Voeten, M. J. M. Native language literacy and phonological memory as prerequisites for learning English as a foreign language. Applied Psycholinguistics. (in press)

Dufva, M., Niemi, P. & Voeten, M. J. M. The role of phonological memory, decoding, and comprehension skills in reading development: From pre-school to grade 2. Reading and Writing. An Interdisciplinary Journal (in press).

Hyoenae, J. DeStefano, C., Hujanen, H., Lindeman, J., Poskiparta, E., D'Heurle, A. & Niemi, P. (1995). Primers as socializing agents in American and Finnish schools. Comparative Education Review 39, 280-298.

Kinnunen, R., Vauras, M. & Niemi, P. (1998). Comprehension monitoring in beginning readers. Scientific Studies in Reading 2, 353-375.

Lepola, J., Salonen, P. & Vauras, M. The development of motivational orientation patterns as a function of differing reading skills careers from pre-school to the second grade. Learning and Instruction. (in press)

Niemi, P. & Tiuraniemi, J. (1995). Tests guide the school psychologist, not the learning problem ? Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 39, 99-106.

Niemi, P. & Poskiparta, E. (1997). Successful remedial teaching with fewer resources. In: Eriksson, B. & R?nnberg, J. (Eds.), Reading Disability and Its Treatment. Link?ping University, Sweden: EMIR Report No. 2. Pp. 67-84.

Niemi, P., Poskiparta, E., Vauras, M. & M?ki, H. (1998). Reading and writing difficulties do not always occur as the researcher expects. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 39, 159-161.

Niemi, P., Kinnunen, R., Poskiparta, E. & Vauras, M. Do pre-school data predict resistance to treatment in phonological awareness, decoding and spelling ? In: Lundberg, I., Toennessen, F-E. & Austad, I., (Eds), Dyslexia: Advances in Theory and Practice. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers b.v. (in press).

Poskiparta, E., Niemi, P. & Vauras, M. Poor reading in grade 1: Who benefits from training in linguistic awareness in the first grade and what components of it show training effects ? Journal of Learning Disabilities. (in press)

Poskiparta, E., Vauras, M. & Niemi, P. Promoting word recognition, spelling and reading comprehension skills in a computer-based training program in grade 2. In: Reitsma, P. & Verhoeven, L. (Eds.), Problems and Interventions in Literacy Development. Amsterdam: Kluwer. Pp. 335-348.

Salonen, P., Lepola, J. & Niemi, P. (1998). The development of first graders' reading skill as a function of pre-school motivational orientation and phonemic awareness. European Journal of Psychology of Education 13, 155-174.

Vauras, M. (1998). Resistance to treatment: Working with motivationally highly vulnerable students. In A. Efklides (Ed.), Motivation in education. Thessaloniki: Ellinika Grammata. Pp. 139-155. (In Greek)

Vauras, M., Kinnunen, R. & Rauhanummi, T. The role of metacognition in the context of integrated strategy intervention. European Journal of Psychology of Education.(in press)

C

France

Principal investigator(s):

Gilles Bardon

Address: Univ. Paris 5

E-mail-address of the contact-person: bardon@psycho.univ-paris5.fr

Title of study:

Subsystems of working memory and word recognition mechanisms

Key words:

word recognition working memory individual differences

Beginning date of study (month, year): 04-96

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 06-98

Number of completed waves: 2

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 2

Time interval between waves (average): 1 yr.

Maximum sample size: 55 subjects + 36 subjects (2 samples)

Size of core sample: 45 + 27

Age range at first data collection: 8,5 yrs. (sample 1); 9,5 yrs. (sample 2)

Data computerized? yes

Are data accessible to other researchers? yes

Type of study:

Correlation study: yes

Intervention study: no

Other:

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups:

Type of treatment group(s):

No. of control groups:

Type of control group(s):

Duration of intervention (weeks or month):

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month):

Test instruments:

Abstract:

The present study concerns the implication of working memory in reading. It aims at showing the links between the modalities of Baddeley and Hitch´s (1974) working memory model and the relative efficiency of two ways in word recognition: the phonological route or the orthographic one. We thought that both types of reading mechanisms could differentially be linked to the different components of working memory. These links could change as the child develops its reading competencies. Several experiments were used to investigate the relationships between working memory and word recognition: Verbal, numeric and visuo-spatial working memory tasks were used in order to estimate the efficiency of each of the components of the working memory as they were defined by Baddeley and Hitch (1974): the articulatory loop, the visuo-spatial sketch-pad and the central executive. Pseudowords and irregular words reading tests allowed us to evaluate the efficiency of the phonological mechanisms on the one hand, the efficiency of the orthographic mechanisms in word recognition on the other hand. These working memory and word recognition tests were administered to 55 and 36 (respectively) 3rd and 4th grade children. The children were tested again one year later with the same procedure. We just begin to analyse the data.

Publications:

C

France

Principal investigator(s):

Mireille Bastien-Toniazzo

Pascale Cole

Address: CNRS & Universite de Provence

E-mail-address of the contact-person: bastien@aixup.univ-aix.fr

Title of study:

Syllable identification in beginning French readers (study in progress)

Key words:

reading grapho-phonological learning

Beginning date of study (month, year): 09-98

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 06-99

Number of completed waves: 3

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 3

Time interval between waves (average): 4 mths.

Maximum sample size: 62

Size of core sample: 62

Age range at first data collection: 5;3 - 6;11 yrs.

Data computerized? no

Are data accessible to other researchers? no

Type of study:

Correlation study: yes

Intervention study: no

Other:

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups:

Type of treatment group(s):

No. of control groups:

Type of control group(s):

Duration of intervention (weeks or month):

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month):

Test instruments:

Abstract:

We studied the development of grapho-phonological learning in French. Sixty-two first grade children had to read aloud, during four sessions from november to june, 40 trisyllabic pseudo-words. The task looked like a game: imaginary characters or animals appeared on the screen of a computer with its "unknown name" written below. Those pseudo-words were divided into four graphemic structures which need different segmentations: (i) CV|CV|CV e.g. panoti; (ii) CVC|CV|CV e.g. bontume; (iii) CVC|CV|CV e.g. barmide; (iiii) CV|CCV|CV e.g. mabroti.

The 9920 responses were classified into six categories which appeared in this order along the sessions: (1) attempts to identify the character ("it's a Martian"); (2) logographic reading ("mum" for the pseudo-word "mabroti"); (3) letter(s) identification ("a /i /o" for "mabroti"); (4) digram(s) identification ("ro" for "mabroti"); (5) larger parts of the word with distorsions ("bor/to" for "mabroti"); (6) correct response. Within the fifth, three categories were anew listed: letters omission ("bo/ti" for "mabroti), letters addition ("bo/ro/ti" for "mabroti") and letters permutation ("bor/ti" for "mabroti").

Individual analyses showed that when children begin to pronounce written words, they don't apply graphemes-phonemes rules. Actually they try to pick out, whatever its or their location in the word, pattern(s) of letters coding oral syllable(s). This strategy leads them to non-legal segmentations of words. Moreover, when faced with words they can't still read, they reduce the difficulty in "distorting" the words. This strategy allows them to find known patterns, the simplest of them being CV bigrams. Instead of a cognitive limitation, this phenomenon corresponds to a general heuristic consisting in leading the unknown back to the known.

Publications:

C

France

Principal investigator(s): Mireille Bastien-Toniazzo

Address: CNRS & Universite de Provence

E-mail-address of the contact-person: bastien@aixup.univ-aix.fr

Title of study:

A longitudinal study of graphophonological acquisition in French

Key words:

reading acquisition grapho-phonological learning

Beginning date of study (month, year): 09-94

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 06-95

Number of completed waves: 4

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 4

Time interval between waves (average): 3 mths.

Maximum sample size: 67

Size of core sample: 62

Age range at first data collection: 5;5 - 6;10 yrs.

Data computerized? yes

Are data accessible to other researchers? no

Type of study:

Correlation study: yes

Intervention study: no

Other: experimental study with individual protocols analysis

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups:

Type of treatment group(s):

No. of control groups:

Type of control group(s):

Duration of intervention (weeks or month):

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month):

Test instruments:

Abstract:

The main objective of this study is to test a knowledge based simulation model, elaborated in a previous longitudinal research in order to explain reading errors produced by first grade children. This model relies on two assumptions: (1) in the beginning of the grapho-phonological acquisition, the child tries to extract, from the series of letters which forms a word, graphic patterns corresponding to an oral syllable; (2) these patterns are stored either in an ordered representation or in a non-ordered representation. Permutation errors, often pointed out in this phase of reading acquisition, would then be the mark of a non-ordered representation of the graphic patterns. Two experiments were proposed to new first grade children, in the middle of the school year. In experiment 1, they had to detect an oral syllable in written pseudo-words in which the first trigram did or not correspond to the legal order. In experiment 2, they had to read aloud trisyllabic pseudo-words in which the first trigram was presented in four different orders. Reading errors correspond to the predictions our model allows to do. Moreover, the absence of correlation between the two tasks, suggests that the knowledge activated depends on the type of activity.

Publications:

Bastien-Toniazzo, M. , Magnan, A. & Bouchafa, H. (1996). Une etude longitudinale des strategies d´apprentissage de la correspondence grapho-phonologique en Francais. Revue de Psychologie de l´Education, 1(2), 37-65.

Bastien-Toniazzo, M. , Magnan, A. & Bouchafa, H. (1999). Nature des representations du langage unit aux debuts de l´apprentissage de la lecture: un modèle interpretatif. Journal International de Psychologie (International Journal of Psychology), 34(1), 43 - 58.

I

France

Principal investigator(s):

Severine Casalis

Address: Universite de Lille III-Charles de Gaulle

E-mail-address of the contact-person: casalis@univ-lille3.fr

Title of study:

Effect of morphological training in Kindergarten.

Key words:

morphological awareness phonological awareness reading acquisition reading acquisition morphological training phonological training

Beginning date of study (month, year): 12-98

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 06-00

Number of completed waves: 2

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 3

Time interval between waves (average): 10 mths.

Maximum sample size: 90

Size of core sample:

Age range at first data collection: 5;0 - 5;11 yrs.

Data computerized? yes

Are data accessible to other researchers? no

Type of study:

Correlation study: no

Intervention study: yes

Other:

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups: 2

Type of treatment group(s):

• morphological analysis training

• phonological analysis training

No. of control groups: 1

Type of control group(s):

• no treatment

Duration of intervention (weeks or month): 12 weeks

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month): twice/week (20-30 minutes)

Test instruments:

Abstract:

Aim of the study:

The morphological and phonological comparison study pursues a double objective.

First, in order to examine more precisely relationship between morphological awareness and phonological awareness, effects of improvement of phonological analysis in morphological analysis and reciprocally are directly tested. Second, as morphological analysis is correlated with reading acquisition, and moreover is partially predictive of reading achievement (Carlisle, 1993, Casalis and Louis-Alexandre), a training study is necessary in order to answer the question of causality. Is morphological analysis a cause of reading achievement? The second aim of the study is to examine if a training of morphological awareness before the onset of literacy has a positive effect on later reading achievement.

Treatment:

Children were trained twice a week (20-30 minutes), in small groups (4 to 5 children).

The experimenter proposed some games, with examples. Each child had to give a response alternatively (in order to ensure participation of all the children of the group).

Only oral tasks were proposed, excluding any recourse to a written form.

Tasks implied in the training session were for morphology:

- words counting

- inversion of compound words

- completion of sentence with derived forms

- root segmentation in sentence completion

- production of morphologically complex words

- roots and affix comprehension

- segmentation of derived forms

- synthesis of root and affix

- flexion : put sentence in the plural form

- flexion : gender transformation

- flexion: conjugation de verbs

For the phonological training, the procedure was very similar except for the manipulated units.

The procedure was also this proposed by Pierre Lecocq in his training study of phonological awareness. Units manipulated were: rhymes, syllables, phones in context, phonemes.

As the study took place this year, results are not yet available.

Publications:

Casalis, S. (1995). Lecture et dyslexies de l'enfant. Lille : Presses Universitaires du Septentrion.

Sprenger-Charolles, L., Casalis, S. (1996). Lire. Lecture et ecriture : acquisition et troubles du developpement. Paris : Presses Universitaires de France.

Casalis, S. (1996). Dyslexies du developpement : presentation de deux cas contrastes. Revue de Neuropsychologie, vol 6, N 2, 189-203.

Sprenger-Charolles, L, Casalis, S., (1995). Reading and spelling acquisition in french first graders : longitudinal evidence. Reading and writing : an interdisciplinary Journal, 7, 39-63.

Casalis, S. (1997). De l'oral à l'ecrit. A.N.A.E. N 43, 119-120.

Casalis, S., Louis-Alexandre, M.-F. (in press). Morphological analysis, phonological analysis and learning to read., Reading and Writing.

C

France

Principal investigator(s): Severine Casalis

Address: Universite de Lille III-Charles de Gaulle

E-mail-address of the contact-person: casalis@univ-lille3.fr

Title of study:

Morphological analysis, phonological analysis and learning to read French: a longitudinal study

Key words:

morphological awareness phonological analysis learning to read

Beginning date of study (month, year): 12-92

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 06-96

Number of completed waves: 3

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 3

Time interval between waves (average): 12 mths.

Maximum sample size: 45

Size of core sample: 45

Age range at first data collection: 5;0 - 5;11 yrs.

Data computerized? yes

Are data accessible to other researchers? yes

Type of study:

Correlation study: yes

Intervention study: no

Other:

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups:

Type of treatment group(s):

No. of control groups:

Type of control group(s):

Duration of intervention (weeks or month):

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month):

Test instruments:

Abstract:

This paper presents a longitudinal study, from kindergarten to second grade, which aims to examine the relationship between morphological analysis, phonological analysis and learning to read. Three phonological awareness tasks, five derivational and four inflectional subtests were administered to fifty children at each of the three levels. Evolution of performance was analysed through the three years. Data showed that with the exception of two subtests, performance increased from kindergarten to first grade and from first grade to second grade, without reaching ceiling performance in second grade, at least for morphological subtests. Links between morphological and phonological analyses were very strong: in particular, syllable segmentation was highly correlated with the morphological subtests in kindergarten while phonemic segmentation was correlated with morphological subtests in first and second grade. There were also strong links between morphological analysis and reading. Regression analyses showed that while phonological awareness explained a major part of variance in first grade, both phonological and morphological scores explained significance part of variance of both decoding and comprehension reading scores in second grade. Thus, this longitudinal study contributes to the evidence of a link between both phonological and morphological analysis and learning to read in French.

Publications:

Casalis, S. (1995). Lecture et dyslexies de l'enfant. Lille : Presses Universitaires du Septentrion.

Sprenger-Charolles, L., Casalis, S. (1996). Lire. Lecture et ecriture : acquisition et troubles du developpement. Paris : Presses Universitaires de France.

Casalis, S. (1996). Dyslexies du developpement : presentation de deux cas contrastes. Revue de Neuropsychologie, vol 6, N 2, 189-203.

Sprenger-Charolles, L, Casalis, S., (1995). Reading and spelling acquisition in french first graders : longitudinal evidence. Reading and writing : an interdisciplinary Journal, 7, 39-63.

Casalis, S. (1997). De l'oral à l'ecrit. A.N.A.E. N 43, 119-120.

Casalis, S., Louis-Alexandre, M.-F. (in press). Morphological analysis, phonological analysis and learning to read., Reading and Writing.

C

France

Principal investigator(s): Severine Casalis

Address: Universite de Lille III-Charles de Gaulle

E-mail-address of the contact-person: casalis@univ-lille3.fr

Title of study:

Development of the written lexicon in contrasted cases of developmental dyslexia.

Key words:

phonological awareness developmental dyslexia follow-up study word recognition

Beginning date of study (month, year): 01-91

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 06-93

Number of completed waves: 4

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 4

Time interval between waves (average): 6 mths.

Maximum sample size: 30

Size of core sample: 14

Age range at first data collection: 9;3 - 12;11 yrs.

Data computerized? yes

Are data accessible to other researchers? yes

Type of study:

Correlation study: yes

Intervention study: no

Other:

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups:

Type of treatment group(s):

No. of control groups:

Type of control group(s):

Duration of intervention (weeks or month):

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month):

Test instruments:

Abstract:

The aim of this study is to examine individually word recognition in developmental dyslexia cases. After examination of the repartition of the 31 cases in a "surface- phonological axis", by means of all the tasks (performances scored in terms of exactitude and rapidity) a follow up of the maximum of individuals was conducted in order to examine evolution of both processes implied in classical dual routes models of word recognition (Coltheart, 1978).

Two concurrent developmental models were tested: an independent developmental model, in which, at least in cases of dyslexia, evolution of both procedures are independent. In such a way, a surface dyslexic case will show improvement in the phonological procedure, and not in the orthographic procedure, and the reverse is expected in the case of phonological cases. This model (implicit in a large number of developmental dyslexia studies) was challenged by a phonological model, based on longitudinal data collected by normal young readers, which indicates that development of orthographic procedure depends on development of phonological procedure (Gough & Walsh, 1992). In the last case, we expected some correlation between progress in irregular words and in pseudowords. Evolution of profiles were also examined. Results indicated that only for very few cases, a developmental dissociation between both procedures could be observed. In majority of cases, development of orthographic procedure depended first on phonological improvement. Moreover, we founded that some phonological cases became "regular" (comparable to lexical-age control) or surface cases, while the reverse never appeared.

Publications:

Casalis, S. (1995). Lecture et dyslexies de l'enfant. Lille : Presses Universitaires du Septentrion.

Sprenger-Charolles, L., Casalis, S. (1996). Lire. Lecture et ecriture : acquisition et troubles du developpement. Paris : Presses Universitaires de France.

Casalis, S. (1996). Dyslexies du developpement : presentation de deux cas contrastes. Revue de Neuropsychologie, vol 6, N 2, 189-203.

Sprenger-Charolles, L, Casalis, S., (1995). Reading and spelling acquisition in french first graders : longitudinal evidence. Reading and writing : an interdisciplinary Journal, 7, 39-63.

Casalis, S. (1997). De l'oral à l'ecrit. A.N.A.E. N 43, 119-120.

Casalis, S., Louis-Alexandre, M.-F. (in press). Morphological analysis, phonological analysis and learning to read., Reading and Writing.

C

France

Principal investigator(s):

Claude Chevrie-Muller

Tanine Goutard

Address: Hopital de la Salpetrière

E-mail-address of the contact-person: claude.chevrie@psl.ap-hop-paris.Fr

Title of study:

Linguistic abilities and reading and spelling proficiency: Follow-up of 488 children from kindergarten to Grade 2.

Key words:

Language abilities reading spelling

Beginning date of study (month, year): 02-91

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 06-93

Number of completed waves: 3

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 3

Time interval between waves (average): 1 yr.

Maximum sample size: 910

Size of core sample: 488

Age range at first data collection: 5;2 - 6;5 yrs.

Data computerized? yes

Are data accessible to other researchers? no

Type of study:

Correlation study: yes

Intervention study: no

Other:

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups:

Type of treatment group(s):

No. of control groups:

Type of control group(s):

Duration of intervention (weeks or month):

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month):

Test instruments:

Abstract:

The main purpose of the present longitudinal study was to determine the relationship between measures collected in kindergarten and later reading skills at second-grade level (February to April). The individual testing was administered by speech therapists using standardised tests (see Table: Test instruments). The program included three waves: Kindergarten, first-grade, second-grade. At the start of the study tests were administered to a total of 900 children and the core sample included 488 subjects. Linguistic abilities (phonological awareness, spoken language including phonology and vocabulary, lexical access), verbal short-term memory (sentence repetition, digit repetition) and grapho-motor ability were assessed in kindergarten (5 to 6 year-old children) and Grade 1. Reading and spelling assessment took place at Grade 1 and Grade 2. Two environment factors were included in the analysis: parental socio-cultural level and bilingualism. The statistical analyses used were simple correlation (r coefficient) and multiple regression (backward stepwise). Multiple regression was performed for three dependent variables: Grade 2 reading comprehension, reading efficiency (aloud) and spelling. Results (those reported here concern the relationship between kindergarten, and Grade 1, independent variables and the Grade 2 dependent variable "reading comprehension", using multiple regression analysis). Significant correlation (Fisher test) was demonstrated between some of the kindergarten variables (i.e. vocabulary, digit memory, sentence repetition, grapho-motor ability) and Grade 2 reading comprehension (multiple correlation coefficient - R2 =.25). Significant relationship was also found between Grade 1 linguistic (phonological production, vocabulary, lexical access) and cognitive abilities and Grade 2 "reading comprehension" (R2 = .24). When including into the group of Grade 1 independent variables the reading and spelling Grade 1 test results, R2 increased up to .47. With environmental factors taken into account the part of the explicated variance rises up to 49%.

Publications:

C

France

Principal investigator(s):

Elisabeth Demont

Jean Emile Gombert

Address: Universite Strasbourg

E-mail-address of the contact-person: Elisabeth.Demont@psycho-ulp.u-strasbg.fr

Title of study:

Metalinguistic development and learning to read.

Key words:

phonological awareness syntactic awareness learning to read recoding skills comprehension skills intelligence vocabulary

Beginning date of study (month, year): 03-91

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 04-94

Number of completed waves: 6

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 6

Time interval between waves (average): 5 mths.

Maximum sample size: 38

Size of core sample: 23

Age range at first data collection: 5;7 yrs.

Data computerized? yes

Are data accessible to other researchers? no

Type of study:

Correlation study: yes

Intervention study: no

Other:

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups:

Type of treatment group(s):

No. of control groups:

Type of control group(s):

Duration of intervention (weeks or month):

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month):

Test instruments:

Abstract:

This study was designed to investigate the relations between two metalinguistic abilities (phonological awareness and syntactic awareness) and two components of reading (recoding abilities and comprehension). In order to study these connections, a four-year follow-up study comprising 23 children was set up. These children had been tested repetitively during their first years of learning to read. Results were analysed with fixed-order regression in which the dependent variable was either recoding abilities or comprehension performances; the first steps were extraneous variables (intelligence and vocabulary levels) and the final step was that of metalinguistic measures. Stepwise regressions were performed including all the measures (metalinguistic performances and extraneous variables). Results indicated that children´s phonological awareness predicts later recoding abilities, while syntactic awareness predicts later reading comprehension after effects of extraneous variables have been ruled out.

Publications:

Demont, E. & Gombert, J.E. (1996). Phonological awareness as a predictor of recoding skills and syntactic awareness as a predictor of comprehension skills. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 66, 315-332.

Gaux, C. & Demont, E. (1997). Conscience phonologique, syntaxique et lecture: Etude chez les jeunes enfants et les pre-adolescents. In C. Barre-De Miniac & B. Lete (Eds.): L´illetrisme - de la prevention chez l´enfant aux strategies de formation chez l´adulte. De Boeck.

C

France

Principal investigator(s):

Jean Ecalle

Address: Universite Lumière Lyon 2

E-mail-address of the contact-person: Jean.Ecalle@univ-lyon2.fr

Title of study:

What can predict reading and spelling skills in the first grades?

Key words:

academic success prediction reading spelling

Beginning date of study (month, year): 03-92

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 06-95

Number of completed waves: 4

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 4

Time interval between waves (average): 10 mths.

Maximum sample size: 96

Size of core sample: 68

Age range at first data collection: 5;10 yrs.

Data computerized? no

Are data accessible to other researchers? no

Type of study:

Correlation study: yes

Intervention study: no

Other:

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups:

Type of treatment group(s):

No. of control groups:

Type of control group(s):

Duration of intervention (weeks or month):

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month):

Test instruments:

Abstract:

Placed in cognitive psychology and psycholinguistic currents, this research concerns a sample of 68 pupils observed during 3 years (between 5 and 8). Among a set of indicators of success in reading and spelling, we were interested more particularly in pupil assessment by teacher, in oral language comprehension, in metaphonological skills, in non-verbal component of intelligence (logic) and in conceptualisations children about language. It was found that assessment pupil by teacher (language level, attentional capacities and autonomy in school work) is one of the most powerful indicators to explain the later skills in reading and spelling.

Publications:

Ecalle, J. (in press). Prediction de reussite scolaire en lecture-ecuiture. Revue Europeenne de Psychologie Appliquee.

C

France

Principal investigator(s):

Philippe Guimard

Address: Universite de Nantes

E-mail-address of the contact-person:

Title of study:

Contribution to the study of reading and spelling acquisition from Kindergarten to second Grade.

Key words:

spelling acquisition relations between reading and spelling profiles in spelling cognitive constraints on spelling acquisition and spelling difficulties

Beginning date of study (month, year): 06-92

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 03-94

Number of completed waves: 3 (6 assessments in kindergarten; 3 assessments in 1^st grade;

1 assessment in 2^nd grade)

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 3

Time interval between waves (average): 1 yr. (from kindergarten to 1^st grade); 8-9 mths. (from 1^st to 2^nd grade)

Maximum sample size: 98

Size of core sample: 91

Age range at first data collection: 6;5 yrs.

Data computerized? yes

Are data accessible to other researchers? yes

Type of study:

Correlation study: yes

Intervention study: no

Other:

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups:

Type of treatment group(s):

No. of control groups:

Type of control group(s):

Duration of intervention (weeks or month):

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month):

Test instruments:

Abstract:

This longitudinal study was conducted with 91 children followed from kindergarten until grade two.

Main goals derived from a cognitive approach:

- to identify spelling contrasted profiles at the end of the first grade and to measure their evolution in the middle of the following year;

- to describe the links between reading and spelling at the beginning of written language acquisition;

- to show, on an overall and differential level, the influence of precursors – the latter have been evaluated in kindergarten -, on the spelling development.

The results show that:

- Four profiles of spelling abilities can be described at the end of first grade: good spellers (50% of the sample), children who cannot write any of the words (10%), and two middle profiles (20% for each) who present a same low level of spelling performance but who differs in terms of kind of spelling errors (phonological vs. non-phonological).

- There is a narrow link between reading and spelling words at the end of the first grade.

- Oral comprehension, knowledge of conventions of reading and conceptualisation of writing systems are common predictors of spelling and writing. Nevertheless, phonological and graphomotricity abilities and abilities in problem solving appear to be specific predictors of spelling performances.

- The four profiles of spelling abilities identified at the end of first grade had very different cognitive profiles in kindergarten.

The main conclusion to be drawn from this research is that there are different forms of spelling difficulties at the end of first grade which depends on the nature and the weight of cognitive constraints. These constraints are identifiable before formal spelling instruction begins in school.

Publications:

Guimard, P. (1997). Representation de l´ecrit et competences cognitives en fin de maternelle. Enfance, 4, 469-482.

C

France

Principal investigator(s):

Agnès Kipffer-Piquard

Liliane Sprenger-Charolles

Address: Universite de Paris

E-mail-address of the contact-person: kipffer@club-internet.fr

Title of study:

Phonological difficulties and dyslexia: Longitudinal study of a group "at risk" and of a control group from nursery school to second grade of primary school (4 to 8 years old).

Key words:

Dyslexia prevention of dyslexia phonological and metaphonological deficits speech processing

Beginning date of study (month, year): 09-97

Date of latest data collection (month, year): 06-00

Number of completed waves: 18 measurement points each year

Total number of waves (at the end of the study): 18x3

Time interval between waves (average): 1 yr.

Maximum sample size: 200

Size of core sample: 90

Age range at first data collection: 4 yrs.

Data computerized? yes

Are data accessible to other researchers? not yet

Type of study:

Correlation study: yes

Intervention study: no

Other: prediction study

The following six items concern only intervention studies:

No. of treatment groups:

Type of treatment group(s):

No. of control groups:

Type of control group(s):

Duration of intervention (weeks or month):

Intensity (hrs per day, week or month):

Test instruments:

Abstract:

No consensual answer has been found concerning the specificity of dyslexia deficits in research carried out over the last years.The hypothesis that dyslexia is mainly and specifically related to the phonological treatment of language will be investigated. Metaphonological and phonological difficulties in perception and production will be re-evaluated especially in the case of rapid temporal processing.

Verbal and nonverbal skills will be assessed separately in order to identify the nature of the deficits. Thus, we will assess phonological vs musical awareness, phonological vs visual (nonverbal) short-term memory, discrimination of rapid phonological transitions vs nonverbal sounds, articulatory-motor skills, articulatory speed, denomination speed.

Our core hypothesis proposed in the framework of the motor theory of speech perception adapted to reading is that developmental reading failures (dyslexia) are mainly due to subtle phonological deficits existing before the beginning of reading instruction.

The aim is to see in what measure the presence of these subtle phonological defects before the beginning of reading instruction affects the capacity of acquiring these reading skills.

In order to evaluate these hypotheses that 1) dyslexia is mainly due to linguistic deficits, specially phonological, 2) subtle phonological deficits existing before reading instruction have an incidence on learning to read, we will use experimental methods.

A group at risk (100 children) will be compared to a control group (100 children). These groups will be followed during 3 years from the last class of nursery school to second grade of primary school. The groups were matched according to children´s chronological age, pre-reading level, verbal and nonverbal IQs in the beginning of nursery school.

As our study is not finished yet, only a few results are available. We were able to isolate two groups (in the last year of nursery school class and 1rst grade) who differed significantly only in the verbal skills described earlier. At present, we are examining the correlations between phonological and metaphonological skills, nonverbal skills and reading skills.

Publications: