How do Children with Developmental Dyslexia Integrate Sentence-Picture Information?

Abstract

Children with developmental dyslexia have significant defects in reading, and many researches show that the form of information presentation will have different effects on individual reading efficiency. This study has adopted a mixed design of 2 (subject group: children with developmental dyslexia, typical development children)×3 (sentence style: affirmative, negative, double-negative)×2 (picture information complexity: simple, complex) to investigate the sentence-picture information integration capability of children with developmental dyslexia, and explore whether children with developmental dyslexia have defects in the ability to integrate sentence-picture information. The results showed that: 1. Sentence style had a significant effect on the integration process, and the reading efficiency of both groups decreased with the increase of sentence structure complexity in all three sentence styles; 2. Picture information complexity had a significant effect on the integration process, and both groups were more efficient in integrating sentence-picture in the simple condition than in the complex condition; 3. Children with developmental dyslexia haddefects in the ability to integrate sentence-picture information. Conclusion: For children with developmental dyslexia, simple sentences, such as affirmative sentences with simple picture information without distractions, can be presented as far as possible to improve their reading efficiency.