Contribution of orthographic knowledge to reading and spelling in Bosnian highly transparent orthography.

The link between orthographic processing skills and reading and spelling abilities has been demonstrated in different studies and languages. However, previous research has not fully clarified this relationship. We examined the relationship between orthographic knowledge and reading and spelling performance in children from the second to the fifth grade of elementary school. We included measures of orthographic knowledge in two scripts (Latin and Cyrillic) for the same language, at both the lexical and sublexical levels. Word-specific orthographic knowledge was assessed by presenting children with pairs of words in which one word followed the orthographic rules of the Bosnian language, while the other was spelled incorrectly. General orthographic knowledge was assessed with an orthographic word-likeness task, where children had to choose the correct pseudoword, which followed legal orthographic patterns, while the incorrect ones did not. Reading and spelling, phonological awareness, and working memory were also included in the research. In Latin, no relationship was found between reading and spelling and orthographic knowledge, independent of the measure of orthographic processing. In Cyrillic, spelling performance predicts progress in general orthographic knowledge. The results of the study suggest that orthographic knowledge does not contribute to reading and spelling between Grades 2 and 3. General orthographic knowledge was an independent predictor of spelling in Grades 4 and 5 for Cyrillic, the second script. The findings suggest that the development of orthographic knowledge should be considered in the context of the specific language, script, and orthography.

Influence of increased letter spacing and font type on the reading ability of dyslexic children.

Recent research studies have shown that increased letter spacing has a positive effect on the reading ability of dyslexic individuals. This study aims to investigate the effect of spacing on the readability of different fonts for children with and without dyslexia. Results did not support the hypothesis of better performance among children with dyslexia when reading text in Dyslexie than in other fonts. They, however, revealed that only spacing plays a role in enhancing dyslexic individuals' reading performance because Dyslexie and the Times New Roman interspaced font have no difference. Furthermore, the negative effect of the unfriendly fonts Times New Roman Italic and Curlz MT was eliminated through increased interletter spacing.

Spelling Errors of Dyslexic Children in Bosnian Language With Transparent Orthography.

The purpose of this study was to explore the nature of spelling errors made by children with dyslexia in Bosnian language with transparent orthography. Three main error categories were distinguished: phonological, orthographic, and grammatical errors. An analysis of error type showed 86% of phonological errors,10% of orthographic errors, and 4% of grammatical errors. Furthermore, the majority errors were the omissions and substitutions, followed by the insertions, omission of rules of assimilation by voicing, and errors with utilization of suffix. We can conclude that phonological errors were dominant in children with dyslexia at all grade levels.

Morphological knowledge in children with dyslexia.

The phonological skills are not the only linguistic abilities which are observed to have some influence on reading achievement in dyslexics. In addition to phonological skills, morphological skills should be also taken in consideration. The aim of this study is to extend investigation the linguistic abilities of children with dyslexia to the morphological level through examination whether there is a lack of morphological knowledge in children with dyslexia for Bosnian language with transparent orthography. Testing sample included 45 children with dyslexia that are compared with chronological age and reading level controls. The dyslexic children performed significantly worse than same age controls on all forms of word and the most complex word formation tasks. Based on the examination of standardized discriminant function coefficients the variable with the highest weight in defining the first discriminant function was the suffixal formation, declination of personal pronouns, changing gender of adjectives with regard to the gender of a noun, and changing of gender of cardinal numbers with regard to the gender of a noun best differentiates groups. Results of multivariate analyses of variance also showed that chronological age and reading level groups outperformed dyslexics on all these tasks. Our results suggest that dyslexics have problems with morphological knowledge which indicate that certain actions regarding the development of morphological abilities in dyslexics should be taken in the elementary grades.

Education of speech and language therapists/logopedists in selected Central and Southeastern European countries: challenges and new horizons.

OBJECTIVE: To provide an overview of student training in speech and language therapy/logopedics (SLT) in selected Central and Southeastern European countries (Poland, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Turkey). METHOD: Data were collected using a special questionnaire developed by Söderpalm and supplemented by Georgieva. Results from 23 SLT programs in the seven countries were collected and organized. RESULTS: In all these countries, SLT has roots in special education or health and is centralized in the university environment. The training programs have positive accreditation provided by the national agencies of accreditation and evaluation. Results were examined specifically for evidence of the new paradigm of evidence-based practice (EBP) according to the revised International Association of Logopedics and Phoniatrics (IALP) guidelines and the application of research-based teaching in SLT. The professional bodies that govern clinical practice in public health and/or educational fields are in the process of EBP implementation. Most speech and language therapists/logopedists in the selected countries work in an educational setting, clinical organization and/or hospital as well as in social day care centers. Except in Turkey, private practices are not regulated by the law. CONCLUSIONS: In the seven countries examined in this survey, SLT is progressing as a professional discipline but must be supported by government funding of SLT education and services to relevant populations.

The speed of articulatory movements involved in speech production in children with dyslexia.

A group of children with dyslexia (mean ages 9 and 14 years) was studied, together with group of children without dyslexia matched for age. Participants were monolingual native speakers of the Bosnian language with transparent orthography. In total, the diagnostic tests were performed with 41 children with dyslexia and 41 nondyslexic children. The participants were asked to produce monosyllables, /pa/, /ta/, and /ka/, and the trisyllable /pataka/, as fast as possible. Analysis was undertaken in four ways: (1) time of occlusion duration for plosives (duration of stop), (2) voice onset time for plosives, (3) diadochokinetic rate--articulators rate measured by pronunciation of monosyllables and the trisyllable, and (4) time of moving articulators from one gesture to another-time of interval length (from the explosion of one plosive to the start of the explosion of another plosive). The results suggest that children with dyslexia have significant problems with the speed of articulatory movements involved in speech production.