The "Sound of Silence": Sensitivity to Silent Letters in Children With and Without Developmental Language Disorder.

Purpose Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) demonstrate general spelling difficulties. This study investigated accuracy on and sensitivity to silent letters in spelling in children with and without DLD. Investigating silent-letter production provides a window into orthographic and morphological knowledge and enhances understanding of children's spelling skills. Method A group of children with DLD (M age = 9;11 [years;months]) and two control groups of typically developing children (n = 30 in each group) were given a dictated spelling task of 44 words that each contained a derivational or a nonderivational silent letter. We coded the silent letter in each word and counted 1 point for each correctly spelled letter in order to examine accuracy on silent letters. Two error patterns were distinguished to analyze sensitivity to silent letters: silent-letter substitutions and silent-letter omissions. Results Repeated-measures ANOVA showed that children with DLD produced significantly more errors on silent letters than did both control groups. Both control groups showed a greater sensitivity to silent-letter endings, as they tended to substitute incorrect silent letters where they made errors. In contrast, children with DLD tended to omit silent letters in their spelling attempts. Conclusions Our results suggest that silent-letter production is a major source of difficulty for spellers, especially for those with DLD, who appear to lack sensitivity to silent letters. These results highlight the importance of promoting spelling instruction to enhance orthographic knowledge in children with DLD.

What Do Spelling Errors Tell Us about Deaf Learners of French?

For deaf students, spelling acquisition is a considerable challenge, especially because the spelling code is based on an oral language to which most of them have limited access. Most studies conducted with deaf students have reported that they lag behind their hearing peers. However, few studies have used a fine-grained error classification grid. The use of such a grid makes it possible to draw a precise portrait of writers' orthographic knowledge. The purpose of this study was to describe the spelling skills of 19 deaf students (Mage = 10.9 years) and to compare their errors with those of 20 hearing students of the same age and 17 younger hearing students at the same reading level. The results indicate that deaf students are not quantitatively different from hearing students but that their errors are qualitatively different from those of hearing students.

Achieving Breastfeeding Equity: A Study of a National Breastfeeding Initiative.

BACKGROUND: Equity in breastfeeding could reduce excess morbidity and mortality among children and mothers of color. Few programs that support breastfeeding have been evaluated for their capacity to create equity. The aim of this study was to assess the extent to which a diverse set of national breastfeeding programs actively promoted equity. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: Qualitative data collection was conducted between December 2012 and July 2013 by visits to 29 of 58 breastfeeding programs selected by the funder. Programs underwent a site visit with open-ended interviews of staff. Investigators used Atlas.ti software to code data and content analysis of qualitative evaluation data. Key categories and themes were identified to answer the questions: how do the programs conceptualize equity? and how do the organizations operationalize an approach to equity? RESULTS: Programs had widely divergent and often limited conceptualizations of equity. Nine categories describe the equity approaches' programs used. The social, political, and environmental contexts in which programs operated varied in the degree of challenge they pose for implementing equity-focused breastfeeding methods. We found only a few programs that matched the social, cultural, and economic realities and context of women of color. CONCLUSIONS: Breastfeeding equity programs need to explicitly define and envision outcomes, and need to identify equity inhibiting policies and practices. Equity attainment is more likely to emerge from institutional transformational processes that collaborate with the populations at risk. These findings have implications for other programs addressing equity in health.

Are dyslexic children sensitive to the morphological structure of words when they read? The case of dyslexic readers of French.

Typically, research has cited a deficient use of word recognition procedures mainly caused by a phonological deficit as the source of dyslexic students' reading difficulties. However, recent studies have shown that morphological processing also plays an important part in reading. In the present study, sensitivity to the morphological structure of words was assessed with a plausibility judgment task, where participants determined which of two pseudo-words most resembled a real word in French, and with a decomposition task requiring participants to extract the base forms of morphologically complex words. Dyslexic participants (DYS, n = 26) aged 9-12 years were matched to 26 participants of the same chronological age (CA) and 30 younger participants of the same reading age (RA). Overall, the decomposition task was less successful at demonstrating morphological knowledge than the plausibility judgment task. Results indicate that dyslexic participants demonstrated some morphological sensitivity, particularly on the plausibility task, but were outperformed by both control groups on both tasks. Performance on morphological tasks was significantly correlated to reading comprehension scores. More research needs to be carried out to better comprehend the effects of task characteristics on dyslexic participants' success and before claiming a different or deviant developmental path for morphological knowledge.

Graphophonological processes in dyslexic readers of French: a longitudinal study of the explicitness effect of tasks.

Given the well-acknowledged phonological deficit found in dyslexic children, this study was aimed at investigating graphophonological processes in dyslexic readers of French over a 1-year period. Among the different types of phonological processing can be distinguished those related to phonological awareness based on knowledge of the oral language and graphophonological processes based on correspondences between the oral and the written language. In this study, we evaluated graphophonemic and graphosyllabic processes using, in each case, two different tasks varying in the degree of cognitive constraint associated with the task (CC- vs CC+). Twenty 11 year-old dyslexic students were compared with younger normal-readers of the same reading level (RA, n=26) and to normal-readers of the same age (CA, n=24). Two variables were considered in the analyses: accuracy and response latency. Results show that dyslexic readers do process written items at the graphophonological level. Also, results indicate main effects of task (CC- vs CC+), time (T1 vs T2), and group (DYS vs RA vs CA). In general, dyslexic participants' performances are comparable to those of RA and differ from those of CA.

The effect of task in deaf readers' graphophonological processes: a longitudinal study.

This article reports on an investigation of graphophonological processes in deaf readers of French over a 1-year period. Deaf readers are known to have a phonological deficit compared to hearing peers, and conclusions from studies on this question are often conflicting. Among the different types of phonological processing, we can identify graphophonological processes based on correspondences between the oral and the written language. In this investigation, we evaluated graphophonemic and graphosyllabic processes using, in each case, two different tasks varying in their degree of cognitive constraints (CC- vs. CC+). Nineteen 11 year-old deaf students were compared to younger normal readers of the same reading level (RA, n = 17) and to normal readers of the same age (CA, n = 20). Two variables were considered in the analyses: accuracy and response latency. Results show that deaf readers do process written items at the graphophonological level and that graphophonological processes are related to reading ability. Also, results indicate main effects of task (CC- vs. CC+), time (T1 vs. T2), and group. In general, deaf participants' performances are comparable to those of RA and differ from those of CA. Results are discussed within the framework of the study of phonology in deaf readers and its relation to reading acquisition.