Training-related changes in early visual processing of functionally illiterate adults: evidence from event-related brain potentials

Boltzmann, Melanie; Rüsseler, Jascha

doi:10.1186/1471-2202-14-154

Cited by 15 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 52 publications

(98 reference statements)

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“…The program is clearly more effective than the regular classes offered to functional illiterates by the adult education schools in Germany. The efficiency of Alpha Plus was confirmed by behavioral, ERP, and fMRI studies (Rüsseler et al, 2012; Boltzmann and Rüsseler, 2013; Boltzmann et al, 2013; Rüsseler et al, 2013). The success of the program is evident but the authors stress the large variability between the participants.…”

Section: Who Is Defined As Functional Illiterate?mentioning

confidence: 90%

“…Functional illiteracy is assumed to originate from cognitive or linguistic disorders and/or be associated with a sociocultural disadvantage (Eme, 2011; Boltzmann and Rüsseler, 2013). The diagnostic assessments and therefore the definition of the sample in different studies is not consistent and sometimes not even explicit.…”

Section: Who Is Defined As Functional Illiterate?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…From the German side, Grosche (2012) used reading-level match design is his dissertation and labeled those ABE students as functional illiterates, who performed in two standardized reading tests in the level of first–fourth grade children (Grosche, 2012). While Rüsseler et al (2013) used German diagnostic reading and spelling tests and involved only those adults to their intervention study who performed worse than average fourth grade level (Boltzmann and Rüsseler, 2013; Boltzmann et al, 2013; Rüsseler et al, 2013) 1 . The French group measured five components: phonological processing, orthographic processing, sentence comprehension, reading speed, and reading comprehension.…”

Section: Who Is Defined As Functional Illiterate?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The components for defining functional illiteracy differ between studies: while Rüsseler and colleagues use reading and spelling tests (Boltzmann and Rüsseler, 2013; Boltzmann et al, 2013; Rüsseler et al, 2013), Eme et al (2010) use a much broader range of test components. It is still unknown which approach is more valid.…”

Section: Who Is Defined As Functional Illiterate?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…1The authors explicitly wrote this criteria only in Rüsseler et al (2013, p. 242) but as they speak about the evaluation of the same training program in Boltzmann and Rüsseler (2013) and in Boltzmann et al (2013), we suppose that they used the same inclusion criteria.…”

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confidence: 99%

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A Review about Functional Illiteracy: Definition, Cognitive, Linguistic, and Numerical Aspects

et al. 2016

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Formally, availability of education for children has increased around the world over the last decades. However, despite having a successful formal education career, adults can become functional illiterates. Functional illiteracy means that a person cannot use reading, writing, and calculation skills for his/her own and the community’s development. Functional illiteracy has considerable negative effects not only on personal development, but also in economic and social terms. Although functional illiteracy has been highly publicized in mass media in the recent years, there is limited scientific knowledge about the people termed functional illiterates; definition, assessment, and differential diagnoses with respect to related numerical and linguistic impairments are rarely studied and controversial. The first goal of our review is to give a comprehensive overview of the research on functional illiteracy by describing gaps in knowledge within the field and to outline and address the basic questions concerning who can be considered as functional illiterates: (1) Do they possess basic skills? (2) In which abilities do they have the largest deficits? (3) Are numerical and linguistic deficits related? (4) What is the fundamental reason for their difficulties? (5) Are there main differences between functional illiterates, illiterates, and dyslexics? We will see that despite partial evidence, there is still much research needed to answer these questions. Secondly, we emphasize the timeliness for a new and more precise definition that results in uniform sampling, better diagnosis, conclusion, and intervention. We propose the following working definition as the result of the review: functional illiteracy is the incapability to understand complex texts despite adequate schooling, age, language skills, elementary reading skills, and IQ. These inabilities must also not be fully explained by sensory, domain-general cognitive, neurological or mental disorders. In sum, we suggest that functional illiteracy must be more thoroughly understood and assessed from a theoretical, empirical, and diagnostic perspective.

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Section: Who Is Defined As Functional Illiterate?mentioning

confidence: 90%

Section: Who Is Defined As Functional Illiterate?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Who Is Defined As Functional Illiterate?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Who Is Defined As Functional Illiterate?mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Review about Functional Illiteracy: Definition, Cognitive, Linguistic, and Numerical Aspects

et al. 2016

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Basic reading and reading-related language skills in adults with deficient reading comprehension who read a transparent orthography

et al. 2021

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This study set out to examine the basic reading skills (accuracy and fluency in decoding, word and text reading) and some of the reading-related language skills (phonological awareness and rapid-naming) of 54 adults with low reading comprehension, who read the transparent German orthography. Participants were born in Germany and showed a typical non-verbal processing speed. With the exception of reading accuracy, participants were expected to present deficits in all basic reading and reading-related skills. The average performance in measures of decoding and word reading fluency was extremely low. A notable proportion of the sample, however, did not present a deficit in these measures. As expected, the average rate of reading errors was generally low. Nevertheless, text reading accuracy was deficient for one quarter of the sample. Tests addressing the reading-related language skills also indicated an average low performance in phonological awareness, but not in rapid-naming. Here too, a notable variance was observed. These results suggest that deficits in the basic reading skills and in phonological awareness characterise, on average, adults with low reading comprehension. At the same time, significant deficits in reading comprehension in this population do not necessarily imply deficits in the more basic skills of reading as well. In addition, the results indicate that reading accuracy constitutes a source of difficulty for some of these adults, despite the reading of a transparent orthography. The sources for the variance in performance throughout the different reading and reading-related measures remain to be explored.

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Functional illiteracy and developmental dyslexia: looking for common roots. A systematic review

et al. 2021

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A considerable amount of the population in more economically developed countries are functionally illiterate (i.e., low literate). Despite some years of schooling and basic reading skills, these individuals cannot properly read and write and, as a consequence have problems to understand even short texts. An often-discussed approach (Greenberg et al. 1997) assumes weak phonological processing skills coupled with untreated developmental dyslexia as possible causes of functional illiteracy. Although there is some data suggesting commonalities between low literacy and developmental dyslexia, it is still not clear, whether these reflect shared consequences (i.e., cognitive and behavioral profile) or shared causes. The present systematic review aims at exploring the similarities and differences identified in empirical studies investigating both functional illiterate and developmental dyslexic samples. Nine electronic databases were searched in order to identify all quantitative studies published in English or German. Although a broad search strategy and few limitations were applied, only 5 studies have been identified adequate from the resulting 9269 references. The results point to the lack of studies directly comparing functional illiterate with developmental dyslexic samples. Moreover, a huge variance has been identified between the studies in how they approached the concept of functional illiteracy, particularly when it came to critical categories such the applied definition, terminology, criteria for inclusion in the sample, research focus, and outcome measures. The available data highlight the need for more direct comparisons in order to understand what extent functional illiteracy and dyslexia share common characteristics.

show abstract

Training-related changes in early visual processing of functionally illiterate adults: evidence from event-related brain potentials

Cited by 15 publications

References 52 publications

A Review about Functional Illiteracy: Definition, Cognitive, Linguistic, and Numerical Aspects

A Review about Functional Illiteracy: Definition, Cognitive, Linguistic, and Numerical Aspects

Basic reading and reading-related language skills in adults with deficient reading comprehension who read a transparent orthography

Functional illiteracy and developmental dyslexia: looking for common roots. A systematic review

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