Premium
Early difficulties of Chinese preschoolers at familial risk for dyslexia: deficits in oral language, phonological processing skills, and print‐related skills
Author(s) -
SukHan Ho Connie,
Leung ManTak,
Cheung Him
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
dyslexia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.694
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1099-0909
pISSN - 1076-9242
DOI - 10.1002/dys.429
Subject(s) - dyslexia , spelling , psychology , phonological awareness , reading (process) , phonology , developmental psychology , cognition , checklist , cognitive psychology , linguistics , literacy , pedagogy , psychiatry , philosophy
The present study examined some early performance difficulties of Chinese preschoolers at familial risk for dyslexia. Seventy‐six high‐risk (40 good and 36 poor readers) and 25 low‐risk Chinese children were tested on oral language, reading‐related cognitive skills (e.g. phonological processing skills, rapid naming, and morphological awareness), and Chinese word reading and spelling over a 3‐year period. The parents were also given a behaviour checklist for identifying child at‐risk behaviours. Results showed that the High Risk (Poor Reading) group performed significantly worse than the Low Risk and the High Risk (Good Reading) group on most of the measures and domains. More children in the High Risk (Poor Reading) group displayed at‐risk behaviours than in the other two groups. These results suggest that Chinese at‐risk children with early difficulties in reading and spelling do show a wide range of language‐, phonology‐, and print‐related deficits, similar to their alphabetic counterparts. An understanding of these early difficulties may help prevent dyslexia from developing in at‐risk children. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.