90 research outputs found
Vowels in development: Speech sound perception in Dutch infants with and without a family risk of dyslexia
No full textThis dissertation investigates the development of speech sound categories in infants with (FR) and without (NFR) a family risk of dyslexia. There were four research questions. The first was whether NFR infants would show evidence in favor of perceptual attunement. NFR infants aged 6-, 8- and 10 months were tested on their discrimination performance of a native (a:/ - /e:/) and non-native (English /ɛ/ - /æ) contrast. They showed evidence of discriminating the native contrast. For the non-native contrast, a decline in discrimination performance was found between the 6- and 8-month-old infants. These findings align with the theory of perceptual attunement. However, the 10-month-olds showed robust evidence of discriminating the non-native contrast. These findings show that the ability to discriminate a non-salient non-native contrast is not lost after the process of perceptual attunement has emerged. The results suggest that the performance of the infants depends on the applied experimental design, the age of the infants and the salience of the contrast.
The second question focused on whether it was possible to classify individual NFR infants as (non-)discriminators. Infants’ discrimination performance of the native contrast was analyzed with a frequentist and Bayesian hierarchical approach. The latter approach was found to be a fruitful approach for individual classification. These findings call for assessment of individual discrimination in longitudinal studies and in studies that investigate the relation between early speech perception and later language or literacy skills to establish the true value of individual assessment.
The third question investigated whether FR infants differed in their developmental discrimination trajectory from their NFR peers. Native (a:/ - /e:/) and non-native English (/ɛ/ - /æ/) speech perception was investigated in 6-, 8- and 10-month-old FR and NFR infants. Results were analyzed at the individual (Bayesian hierarchical modeling) and group level (frequentist modeling). Results of the NFR infants showed the same U-shaped pattern as described above: The 6- and 10-month-olds discriminated the non-native contrast. NFR and FR infants discriminated the native contrast. The FR infants did not show evidence of discriminating the non-native contrast at any of the ages. These findings suggest that the FR infants have a subtle delay in the development of their speech sound categories.
Finally, the fourth question concerned distributional phonetic learning. This is a learning mechanism that has been proposed to account for perceptual attunement. It was investigated whether 8-month-old FR and NFR infants could discriminate the English /ɛ/ - /æ contrast after being exposed to either a unimodal or bimodal frequency distribution. There were no clear differences between no-FR and FR infants on this task. Furthermore, there was no difference in discrimination outcomes for infants exposed to the unimodal (which could lead to only one phoneme category) and bimodal condition (which could lead to two phoneme categories). These findings call for further research on distributional learning.
Together, the findings point towards the dynamic nature of speech sound development and the differences that appear in this development between groups (NFR and FR) and individual infants
Rekenproblemen bij kinderen met dyslexie
No full textHet doel van dit onderzoek is om meer inzicht te verkrijgen in de risicofactoren onderliggend aan de rekenproblemen die kinderen met dyslexie ervaren. Er is getoetst of deze rekenproblemen een gevolg zijn van de cognitieve vaardigheden onderliggend aan de lees/spellingproblematiek of dat deze kunnen worden verklaard door additionele cognitieve vaardigheden die worden geassocieerd met rekenspecifieke vaardigheden. Een groep basisschoolleerlingen uit groep 4, 5 en 6 met dyslexie (N = 58) is vergeleken met een controlegroep (N = 59) op lezen, spellen, rekenen, fonologisch bewustzijn, snel serieel benoemen, getalbegrip en werkgeheugen. Uit de analyses is gebleken dat de helft van de kinderen met dyslexie ook rekenproblemen vertoonde en dat deze problemen niet voorspeld kunnen worden door de cognitieve vaardigheden onderliggend aan lees/spelling problemen (fonologie en snel serieel benoemen). De problemen kunnen worden verklaard door additionele cognitieve vaardigheden die worden geassocieerd met dyscalculie (getalbegrip en werkgeheugen). Kinderen met dyslexie en rekenproblemen hebben dus in ernstigere mate problemen dan kinderen met enkel dyslexie. Deze bevindingen ondersteunen eerder onderzoek naar de comorbiditeit tussen dyslexie en rekenproblematiek
Past tense productivity in Dutch children with and without SLI: The role of morphophonology and frequency
No full textThis study focuses on morphophonology and frequency in past tense production. It was assessed whether Dutch five- and seven-year-old typically developing (TD) children and eight-year-old children with specific language impairment (SLI) produce the correct allomorph in regular, irregular, and novel past tense formation. Type frequency of the allomorph, token frequency and phonotactic probability (PP) of the novel verb form are considered. The results showed all groups were sensitive to the phonological cue. PP did not contribute to past tense inflection of novel verbs in any of the groups, but type frequency did in all three groups. Only the seven-year-old typically developing children relied on token frequency for inflection of regulars. The findings point to an important role of phonology and frequency in past tense acquisition for both TD children and children with SLI. We discuss how the SLI performance pattern relates to theories on SLI
Dyslexia and Phonology: A study of the phonological abilities of Dutch children at-risk of dyslexia
No full textThis thesis explores the phonological deficit of children with a familial risk of dyslexia. This approach contributes to the identification of possible linguistic precursors of dyslexia. The thesis is set within the framework of the phonological deficit hypothesis of dyslexia. Through assessment of performance of at-risk children on linguistically-based measures, as well as measures of phonological processing and awareness, this phonological deficit hypothesis can be tested and refined. Secondly, a comparison was made between the phonological abilities of children with a risk of dyslexia and children with specific language impairment (SLI). Both disorders are characterised by language and reading difficulties and it is investigated whether they are both caused by (similar) underlying phonological difficulties. This comparison contributes to the evaluation of hypotheses on the relationship between dyslexia and SLI. It is shown that the three-, four-, and five-year-old children at-risk of dyslexia displayed more difficulties than normally developing children on tasks tapping into phonology. Differences were especially evident on tasks measuring expressive phonology, word stress competence, and phonological processing. These findings confirm the phonological deficit hypothesis. They further show that a linguistically-informed approach leads to new insights; not all measures led to equally poor results of the at-risk group and the notion of ‘phonology’ in the phonological deficit should not be treated as a simple construct. Additionally, the at-risk and SLI children generally showed difficulties on the same tasks, but to a different extent and with different error patterns, indicating that dyslexia and SLI are best treated as separate disorders partly caused by a similar risk factor, i.e. poor phonology. These findings can best be subsumed by the qualitative difference hypothesis of dyslexia and SLI
Shared and Unique Risk Factors Underlying Mathematical Disability and Reading and Spelling Disability
Get PDFHigh comorbidity rates have been reported between mathematical learning disabilities (MD) and reading and spelling disabilities (RSD). Research has identified skills related to math, such as number sense (NS) and visuospatial working memory (visuospatial WM), as well as to literacy, such as phonological awareness (PA), rapid automatized naming (RAN) and verbal short-term memory (Verbal STM). In order to explain the high comorbidity rates between MD and RSD, 7–11-year-old children were assessed on a range of cognitive abilities related to literacy (PA, RAN, Verbal STM) and mathematical ability (visuospatial WM, NS). The group of children consisted of typically developing (TD) children (n = 32), children with MD (n = 26), children with RSD (n = 29), and combined MD and RSD (n = 43). It was hypothesized that, in line with the multiple deficit view on learning disorders, at least one unique predictor for both MD and RSD and a possible shared cognitive risk factor would be found to account for the comorbidity between the symptom dimensions literacy and math. Secondly, our hypotheses were that (a) a probabilistic multi-factorial risk factor model would provide a better fit to the data than a deterministic single risk factor model and (b) that a shared risk factor model would provide a better fit than the specific multi-factorial model. All our hypotheses were confirmed. NS and visuospatial WM were identified as unique cognitive predictors for MD, whereas PA and RAN were both associated with RSD. Also, a shared risk factor model with PA as a cognitive predictor for both RSD and MD fitted the data best, indicating that MD and RSD might co-occur due to a shared underlying deficit in phonological processing. Possible explanations are discussed in the context of sample selection and composition. This study shows that different cognitive factors play a role in mathematics and literacy, and that a phonological processing deficit might play a role in the occurrence of MD and RSD
Evaluatie van pilotuitvoering van de NELI
No full textDit document bevat een inventarisatie van de kansen en uitdagingen die er zijn voor de implementatie van de NELI op basis van de pilot die is uitgevoerd op vier scholen (Eglantier Delft, Egelantier Almere, Daltonschool Nellestein Amsterdam en IKC De Ster Amsterdam). Het is een vervolg op de tussentijdse evaluatie uit januari 2023. De pilot bestond uit de hele interventiecyclus, namelijk scholen betrekken bij NELI, training van onderwijsassistenten, selectie van leerlingen voor de interventie, en de daadwerkelijke interventie. Deze inventarisatie is bedoeld voor de direct betrokkenen van Vinci toponderwijs en voor de onderzoekers van de NRO Kansrijke Interventies NELI van de Vrije Universiteit. De rapportage mag niet verder worden verspreid
Dyslexic students in regular and bilingual secondary education in the Netherlands: Dutch and English literacy and language outcomes
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130423.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access
Evaluatie van pilotuitvoering van de NELI
No full textDit document bevat een inventarisatie van de kansen en uitdagingen die er zijn voor de implementatie van de NELI op basis van de pilot die is uitgevoerd op vier scholen (Eglantier Delft, Egelantier Almere, Daltonschool Nellestein Amsterdam en IKC De Ster Amsterdam). Het is een vervolg op de tussentijdse evaluatie uit januari 2023. De pilot bestond uit de hele interventiecyclus, namelijk scholen betrekken bij NELI, training van onderwijsassistenten, selectie van leerlingen voor de interventie, en de daadwerkelijke interventie. Deze inventarisatie is bedoeld voor de direct betrokkenen van Vinci toponderwijs en voor de onderzoekers van de NRO Kansrijke Interventies NELI van de Vrije Universiteit. De rapportage mag niet verder worden verspreid
The relationship between reading and listening comprehension: Shared and modality-specific components
Get PDFThis study aimed to increase our understanding on the relationship between reading and listening comprehension. Both in comprehension theory and in educational practice, reading and listening comprehension are often seen as interchangeable, overlooking modality-specific aspects of them separately. Three questions were addressed. First, it was examined to what extent reading and listening comprehension comprise modality-specific, distinct skills or an overlapping, domain-general skill in terms of the amount of explained variance in one comprehension type by the opposite comprehension type. Second, general and modality-unique subskills of reading and listening comprehension were sought by assessing the contributions of the foundational skills word reading fluency, vocabulary, memory, attention, and inhibition to both comprehension types. Lastly, the practice of using either listening comprehension or vocabulary as a proxy of general comprehension was investigated. Reading and listening comprehension tasks with the same format were assessed in 85 second and third grade children. Analyses revealed that reading comprehension explained 34% of the variance in listening comprehension, and listening comprehension 40% of reading comprehension. Vocabulary and word reading fluency were found to be shared contributors to both reading and listening comprehension. None of the other cognitive skills contributed significantly to reading or listening comprehension. These results indicate that only part of the comprehension process is indeed domain-general and not influenced by the modality in which the information is provided. Especially vocabulary seems to play a large role in this domain-general part. The findings warrant a more prominent focus of modality-specific aspects of both reading and listening comprehension in research and education
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