Development of reading-related phonological processing abilities: New evidence of bidirectional causality from a latent variable longitudinal study.

Abstract

Results from a longitudinal correlational study of 244 children from kindergarten through 2nd grade indicate that young children’s phonological processing abilities are well-described by 5 correlated latent abilities: phonological analysis, phonological synthesis, phonological coding in working memory, isolated naming, and serial naming. These abilities are characterized by different developmental rates and remarkably stable individual differences. Decoding did not exert a causal influence on subsequent phonological processing abilities, but letter-name knowledge did. Causal relations between phonological processing abilities and reading-related knowledge are bidirectional: Phonological processing abilities exert strong causal influences on word decoding; letter-name knowledge exerts a more modest causal influence on subsequent phonological processing abilities.

Literacy after cerebral hemispherectomy: Can the isolated right hemisphere read?

“…In typical development, reading emerges with progressive left-brain lateralization and remains a strongly lateralized function throughout the lifespan, with the RH contribution traditionally described as being limited to one-word semantic access and visual word recognition. The fact that a number of studies have demonstrated 1 For elision, a participant might be asked to say the word bold and then told to say bold without the b (the correct answer being old). In the blending-words task, a participant hears sounds produced separately and is asked to put them together (e.g., the sounds t and oi would be heard separately, and the participant would come up with toy).…”

“…The PA test involves elision and blending words and was administered to assess the awareness and ability to manipulate phonological structures reflecting the capacity to code information phonologically for temporary storage in working memory. 1 The PM part assesses the size of short-term verbal storage and included memory for digits and nonword repetition. 2 The RN portion estimates the ability to quickly retrieve phonological forms (names) associated with graphic stimuli and included naming digits and letters.…”

“…Reading, the ability to utilize visual representations of letters to access the phonological and semantic representations of words, is traditionally considered a brain function strongly lateralized to the left cerebral hemisphere, LH [1][2][3]. Vigneau and colleagues in their 2011 meta-review of 128 articles reporting brain activations associated with reading in healthy right-handed adults confirmed that the right hemisphere, RH, on its own, lacks phonological processing abilities that could constitute an important component in reading acquisition, i.e., the RH lacks the ability to map letters to sounds (i.e., to connect orthography to phonology).…”

“…While the effect of the dominant hemisphere resection on spoken language has been extensively researched, little is known about reading abilities in individuals after left-sided resection. Left-lateralized phonological abilities are the key components of reading, i.e., grapheme-phoneme conversion skills [1]. These skills are critical for the acquisition of wordspecific orthographic knowledge and have been shown to predict reading levels in average readers as well as in readers with mild cognitive disability [26].…”

Phonological development in relation to native language and literacy: Variations on a theme in six alphabetic orthographies

“…The relation between phonology and orthography in reading development is most likely bi-directional (e.g., Perfetti, Beck, Bell, & Hughes, 1987;Wagner, Torgesen, & Rashotte, 1994). A necessary first step in uncovering the fine details of this relationship between phonology and orthography then is to describe the availability of sound as reading acquisition begins and whether this differs notably between languages.…”