Error-monitoring: A predictor of future reading skills? A 3-year longitudinal study in children.

Investigation of the factors explaining individual differences in the acquisition of expert reading skills has become of particular interest these last decades. Non-verbal abilities, such as visual attention and executive functions play an important role in reading acquisition. Among those non-verbal factors, error-monitoring, which allows one to detect one's own errors and to avoid repeating them in the future, has been reported to be impaired in dyslexic readers. The present three-year longitudinal study aims at determining whether error-monitoring efficiency evaluated before and during reading instruction could improve the explanation of reading skills. To do so, 85 children will be followed from the last year of kindergarten to the second grade. The classic predictors of reading will be assessed at each grade level. Error-monitoring indices in domain-general and reading-related contexts will be derived from EMG data recorded during a Simon task in kindergarten and during both a Simon and a lexical decision tasks in the first and second grades. Findings concerning the role of error-monitoring on reading skills are expected to have an important impact on reading instruction to prevent reading difficulties in at-risk children and improve remediation to help children with reading difficulties.

Photograph method fosters direct access to second-language word meaning: Direct evidence from a word-picture matching task.

This experiment was designed to investigate conceptual links directly through a word-picture matching task in children. Participants were asked to indicate between two pictures the one depicting the same concept as the newly learned L2 word (target). One of the two pictures was the target, while the other was either semantically related to it or was unrelated. To investigate whether learning methods modulate L2 word processing, two learning methods were compared: an L2-photograph method and an L1-L2 method. Results showed a semantic interference effect only with the L2-photograph method: Children responded more slowly in the related condition than in the unrelated one. The learning method modulated L2 word processing and L2 word meaning was not necessarily accessed through L1 mediation in the first steps of learning. The method used paves the way for the direct investigation of conceptual links.

Does learning to read affect naming skills? Insights from ERPs during letter and picture naming tasks.

Numerous studies report that poor readers display low performance in naming tasks. However, very few studies have investigated the development of naming skills along with the development of reading fluency and its variability in typically developing children. In this study, we used electro-encephalographic (EEG) recordings acquired during letter and picture naming tasks to investigate how naming skills develop and, possibly, interact with age and reading level variations. Ninety-three children aged 7-12 years named letters and pictures under an EEG recording, and their reading performance was assessed. ERP results on amplitudes show that age and reading level have similar effects on the entire letter naming time-course. By contrast, age and reading level have different effects on the picture naming time-course, with a specific effect of reading level on the N1 time-interval, associated with visuo-conceptual processing and an effect of both age and reading on later time-windows. On the microstate analysis, age remains the only predictor of the variance in global electric field at scalp for both letter and picture naming indicating that reading skill is not related to a modulation of the mental processes underlying naming.

Syllable-first rather than letter-first to improve phonemic awareness.

The present study investigates the nature of the spelling-to-sound correspondences taught to enhance phonemic awareness in prereaders. The main assumption in the literature is that learning the alphabetic code through letter-to-phoneme correspondences is the best way to improve phonemic awareness. The alternative syllabic bridge hypothesis, based on the saliency and early availability of syllables, assumes that learning to associate letters to phonological syllables enables phoneme units to be the mirror of the letters and to become accessible, thereby developing phonemic awareness of prereaders. A total of 222 French-speaking prereaders took part in a 4-session learning program based on correspondences either between letters and syllables (letters-to-syllable group) or between letters and phonemes (letter-to-phoneme group), and the fifth last session on coding and decoding. Our results showed a greater increase in phonemic awareness in the letters-to-syllable group than in the letter-to-phoneme group. The present study suggests that teaching prereaders letters-to-syllable correspondences is a key to successful reading.

The electrophysiological correlates of developmental dyslexia: New insights from lexical decision and reading aloud in adults.

Many studies have described the electrophysiological specificities of print processing in dyslexic readers, mostly using lexical decision tasks. The aim of the present study was twofold: a) to assess for the first time the electrophysiological correlates of print processing in dyslexic adults in the under-investigated context of reading aloud tasks, acknowledged to be especially relevant to investigate phonological processes relatively to lexical decision; and b) to assess whether the electrophysiological specificities described in dyslexic readers in lexical decision correspond to a different neuronal network engaged in print processing. 21 dyslexic university students and matched controls performed a lexical decision task and a reading aloud task on words and pseudowords under EEG recording. In lexical decision, the pattern of results indicates the engagement of similar brain processes between the groups, but with a sub-efficient visual word form processing in dyslexia. In reading aloud, between group differences revealed completely different distributions of the electric field at scalp between the two groups after the N2 time window, suggesting alternative processing strategies in dyslexic readers. Those specificities seem to be related to their core phonological deficits. Crucially, the present results suggest that the nature of electrophysiological divergences in print processing in dyslexic readers vary according to the task: while lexical decision task appears to be well suited to assess divergences in lexical access, reading aloud tasks should also be used in ERP investigation as it allows a better insight into phonological processes and thus be better suited in the framework of the phonological deficit theory of dyslexia.

Beyond the initial 140 ms, lexical decision and reading aloud are different tasks: An ERP study with topographic analysis.

Most of our knowledge on the time-course of the mechanisms involved in reading derived from electrophysiological studies is based on lexical decision tasks. By contrast, very few ERP studies investigated the processes involved in reading aloud. It has been suggested that the lexical decision task provides a good index of the processes occurring during reading aloud, with only late processing differences related to task response modalities. However, some behavioral studies reported different sensitivity to psycholinguistic factors between the two tasks, suggesting that print processing could differ at earlier processing stages. The aim of the present study was thus to carry out an ERP comparison between lexical decision and reading aloud in order to determine when print processing differs between these two tasks. Twenty native French speakers performed a lexical decision task and a reading aloud task with the same written stimuli. Results revealed different electrophysiological patterns on both waveform amplitudes and global topography between lexical decision and reading aloud from about 140 ms after stimulus presentation for both words and pseudowords, i.e., as early as the N170 component. These results suggest that only very early, low-level visual processes are common to the two tasks which differ in core processes. Taken together, our main finding questions the use of the lexical decision task as an appropriate paradigm to investigate reading processes and warns against generalizing its results to word reading.

Conflict control processing in adults with developmental dyslexia: an event related potentials study.

OBJECTIVE: The present study investigated the time course for processing conflict in dyslexic adults using a flanker task. METHODS: Sixteen dyslexic and 15 control adults performed a flanker task comprising congruent and incongruent trials in which participants had to indicate the direction of targets surrounded by flankers. Early negative potentials associated with orienting of attention (i.e., N1) and conflict monitoring (i.e., N2) and two positive potentials associated with conflict resolution (i.e., P3b and Nogo P3) were recorded. RESULTS: The behavioral data showed differences between incongruent and congruent trials for reaction times in both groups but for error rate only in dyslexics. As in previous studies, controls displayed greater N1, N2 and NoGo P3 as well as a smaller P3b in incongruent trials. Dyslexics lacked N1, N2 and P3b modulation whereas NoGo P3 effect was preserved. CONCLUSION: Dyslexics showed impairments in conflict monitoring and in some aspects of conflict resolution (i.e., the allocation of attentional resources) whereas other aspects of conflict resolution (i.e., the inhibition) were preserved. SIGNIFICANCE: This is the first study to investigate conflict control processing in dyslexic adults using ERPs. Results provide evidence for deficits in orienting of attention, conflict monitoring and allocation of attentional resources in dyslexics.

Is the impaired N170 print tuning specific to developmental dyslexia? A matched reading-level study with poor readers and dyslexics.

Left N170 print tuning has been associated with visual expertise for print and has been reported to be impaired in dyslexics, using age matched designs. This is the first time N170 print tuning has been compared in adult dyslexics and adult poor readers, matched in reading level. Participants performed a lexical decision task using both word-like stimuli and symbol strings. In contrast to dyslexics, poor readers displayed similar N170 tuning to control expert readers, suggesting that impaired N170 specialization is a hallmark of developmental dyslexia. Our findings provide electrophysiological support for dyslexia being the result of abnormal specialization of the left occipito-temporal areas involved in the expert processing of print. Furthermore, as shown by correlations data and in accordance with the phonological mapping deficit theory, the impaired visual expertise for print described in dyslexics may have been caused by their core phonological deficits.

Impaired visual expertise for print in French adults with dyslexia as shown by N170 tuning.

Efficient reading relies on expertise in the visual word form area, with abnormalities in the functional specialization of this area observed in individuals with developmental dyslexia. We have investigated event related potentials in print tuning in adults with dyslexia, based on their N170 response at 135-255 ms. Control and dyslexic adults performed a lexical decision task with symbol strings and four sets of word-like stimuli (consonant strings, pseudowords, low frequency words and high frequency words). N170 tuning was observed in the control group, with larger left occipito-temporal negativities for word-like stimuli than for symbol strings. In contrast, N170 specialization was lacking in dyslexics, suggesting no visual expertise for print. Moreover, behavioral data indicated that adults with dyslexia had longer latencies and more errors for pseudowords than for other stimuli, suggesting a persistent phonological deficit in these individuals. These findings suggest that altered decoding abilities may disrupt perceptual expertise for print. The results are discussed in the context of the phonological mapping deficit theory.