The Heterogeneity of Reading-Related Difficulties in Chinese

Abstract

The present chapter reviews cognitive-linguistic skills which are associated with various reading-related difficulties in Chinese. Research findings have showed that rapid naming and orthographic deficits are the unique marker deficits of Chinese developmental dyslexia. However, studies have indicated overlapping and dissociative deficits in dyslexia and spelling difficulties. Findings on dissociation between word reading and spelling difficulties suggest that weaknesses in orthographic processing may specifically cause difficulties in Chinese word spelling. Deficits in rapid naming are more associated with word reading fluency than reading accuracy. Beyond word level processing, there are children who encounter difficulties in reading comprehension even with adequate decoding skills. This group of specific poor comprehenders was found to be weak in some discourse-level skills, like comprehension monitoring and inferencing. Knowledge of these findings will inform us about effective identification of and intervention for children with difficulties in one or a combination of several reading-related difficulties in Chinese.