Children’s neurodevelopment of reading is affected by China’s language input system in the information era

Abstract

Communications through electronic devices require knowledge in typewriting, typically with the pinyin input method in China. Yet, the over utilization of the pronunciation-based pinyin input method may violate the traditional learning processes of written Chinese, which involves abundant visual orthographic analysis of characters and repeated writing. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the influence of pinyin typing on reading neurodevelopment of intermediate Chinese readers (age 9-11). We found that, relative to less frequent pinyin users, more frequent pinyin users showed an overall weaker pattern of cortical activations in the left middle frontal gyrus, left inferior frontal gyrus, and right fusiform gyrus in performing reading tasks. In addition, more frequent pinyin typists had relatively less gray matter volume in the left middle frontal region, a site known to be crucial for Chinese reading. This study demonstrates that Chinese children's brain development in the information era is affected by the frequent use of the pinyin input method.

The development of brain functional connectome during text reading

“…Four brief introductions of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale stories in a Chinese extracurricular book were edited as the materials for the reading task ( Zhou et al, 2020 ). Each story was presented in one block with 10 sentence trials.…”

Narrative Inquiry into Online Teaching of Chinese Characters during the Pandemic

“…Due to the pictographic origin and logographic nature of the Chinese script, Chinese characters consist of a three-tier structure: strokes are the small units that form a radical, and one or more radicals are grouped to construct a character. This complex, nonlinear configuration of characters require years of study in order to acquire adequate and accurate visuospatial processing in Chinese reading (Zhou et al, 2020). Importantly, previous research shows the write-to-read effect (Guan et al, 2011, Zhang & Reilly, 2015 and the importance of handwriting-to-character recognition (Cao et al, 2013;Mangen et al, 2015).…”

“…However, online teaching means pedagogical practice has to rely on digital input rather than pen and paper, which minimises the opportunities for handwriting. One of the main input methods -indeed, the most popular in China -is pinyin input (Zhang & Min, 2019;Zhou et al, 2020). This requires knowledge of the sound of the Chinese characters, as pinyin is the system of romanising character pronunciation.…”

“…On the other hand, behavioural research and neuroimaging studies reveal that heavy reliance on pinyin may hinder reading development or even child brain development (Tan et al, 2013;Zhou et al, 2020). Moreover, recent studies (Zhang & Min, 2019;Zhu et al, 2016) suggest that CFL learners may Qi Zhang benefit from typing with an input method if it were introduced at the intermediate level, rather than to complete beginners.…”

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“…A recent fMRI study by Zhou et al further demonstrated the impact of pinyin typing on neurodevelopment of reading in Chinese school-aged children (17). They found that more frequent usage of pinyin typing and digital devices in children was associated with overall weaker cortical activations, weaker functional connections, and reduced gray matter volume within the reading cortical network, suggesting that reliance on typewriting over handwriting may interfere with children's neurodevelopment of reading.…”