Anita M.-Y. Wong

What's in a Word? Morphological Awareness and Vocabulary Knowledge in Three Languages.

Understanding how words are created is potentially a key component to being able to learn and understand new vocabulary words. However, research on morphological awareness is relatively rare. In this study, over 660 preschool-aged children from three language groups (Cantonese, Mandarin, and Korean speakers) in which compounding morphology is highly prevalent were tested on their abilities to manipulate familiar morphemes to create novel compound words as well as on a variety of early language and reasoning measures twice over the span of 9 months to 1 year. With Time 1 vocabulary knowledge, phonological processing, and reasoning skills controlled, morphological awareness predicted unique variance in Time 2 vocabulary knowledge across languages. Across languages, vocabulary knowledge also predicted unique variance in subsequent morphological awareness, with Time 1 morphological awareness controlled. Findings underscore the bidirectional bootstrapping of morphological awareness and vocabulary acquisition for languages in which lexical compounding is prominent, and suggest that morphological awareness may be practically important in predicting and fostering childrens early vocabulary learning.

Syllable, phoneme, and tone: Psycholinguistic units in early Chinese and English word recognition

Tasks of word reading in Chinese and English; nonverbal IQ; speeded naming; and units of syllable onset (a phoneme measure), syllable, and tone detection awareness were administered to 211 Hong Kong Chinese children ages 4 and 5. In separate regression equations, syllable awareness was equally associated with Chinese and English word recognition. In contrast, syllable onset awareness was uniquely associated with English reading only, whereas tone detection was uniquely associated with Chinese reading only. Results underscore both the universality of first-language phonological transfer to second-language reading and the importance of different psycholinguistic units (Ziegler & Goswami, 2005) for understanding reading acquisition: Tone units are integral to Chinese character recognition, whereas phonemes are more strongly associated with English word recognition, even within the same children.

Specific Reading Difficulties in Chinese, English, or Both Longitudinal Markers of Phonological Awareness, Morphological Awareness, and RAN in Hong Kong Chinese Children

What are the longitudinal cognitive profiles of Hong Kong Chinese children with specific reading difficulties in Chinese only, in English only, or both? A total of 16 poor readers each of Chinese (PC) and English (PE) and 8 poor readers of both orthographies (PB) were compared to a control sample (C) of 16 children; all were drawn from a statistically representative sample of 154 Hong Kong Chinese children tested at ages 5 to 9 years. PE and PB children’s mothers had lower education levels than did the other groups. With children’s ages and mothers’ education levels statistically controlled, the PE, PC, and PB groups were significantly lower than the C group on phonological awareness. The PB and PE groups also scored significantly lower than the others on English vocabulary across years, whereas the PC and PB groups were significantly poorer than the C and PE groups on morphological awareness across years. Finally, the PB group was significantly slower than the other groups on speed naming at every age tested, underscoring the potential importance of automaticity in reading across orthographies. Findings highlight the need to consider the issue of how to identify reading difficulties in a second language.

Morphological awareness in Chinese: Unique associations of homophone awareness and lexical compounding to word reading and vocabulary knowledge in Chinese children

An in-depth exploration of the associations of two aspects of morphological awareness in Chinese—homophone awareness and lexical compounding awareness—to Chinese word reading and vocabulary knowledge was the primary focus of the present study. Among 154 9-year-old Hong Kong Chinese children, both lexical compounding and homophone awareness were significantly associated with word reading (r = .54 for compounding, r = .38 for homophones) and vocabulary knowledge (r = .41 for compounding, r = .53 for homophones). However, with autoregressors additionally statistically controlled, homophone awareness remained uniquely associated with vocabulary but not word reading; lexical compounding was uniquely associated with both word reading and vocabulary. Path analyses best illustrated this pattern. Both morphological awareness constructs are likely bidirectionally associated with word reading and vocabulary knowledge. However, homophone awareness is more centrally associated with vocabulary knowledge because it taps specific, existing morpheme knowledge. In contrast, lexical compounding requires structural understanding of ones language, which seems to be helpful for both learning to read and vocabulary acquisition in Chinese.

The Production of Passives by Children with Specific Language Impairment Acquiring English or Cantonese.

The production of passive sentences by children with specific language impairment (SLI) was studied in two languages, English and Cantonese. In both languages, the word order required for passive sentences differs from the word order used for active sentences. However, English and Cantonese passive sentences are quite different in other respects. We found that English-speaking children with SLI were less proficient than both same-age and younger typically developing peers in the use of passives, though difficulty could not be attributed to word order or a reliance on active sentences. Cantonese-speaking children with SLI proved less capable than same-age peers but at least as proficient as younger peers in their use of passive sentences. The implications of these cross-linguistic differences are discussed.

Poor Readers of Chinese and English: Overlap, Stability, and Longitudinal Correlates

We tested the overlap in the bottom 25% of scorers (termed “poor readers”) in word reading in Chinese and English, respectively, among statistically representative groups of 8-year-olds from Hong Kong and Beijing in order to determine the chances of being a poor reader in English given that one was already a poor reader in Chinese. The overlap in the status of poor reader was 32% in Hong Kong and 40% in Beijing. For the Beijing sample only, we also examined longitudinal correlates of children who were poor readers of Chinese only, of English only, or poor readers in both, relative to controls at age 8. Poor readers of either Chinese or English scored the same on phonological awareness relative to controls, and poor readers of Chinese were lower than those who were poor readers of English on morphological awareness. Those children who were poor in both scored significantly lower in phonological awareness and morphological awareness, as well as slower in rapid automatized naming, over time, relative to the other groups. Results suggest that it is possible to be poor in reading of either Chinese or English or both and that the cognitive correlates of such difficulties may differ by orthography.

Characterizing the Overlap Between SLI and Dyslexia in Chinese: The Role of Phonology and Beyond

This study examined the overlap of dyslexia and specific language impairment (SLI) in Cantonese-Chinese-speaking children. Thirty children with a prior diagnosis of SLI and 9 normal controls, aged between 6;0 and 11;3, participated. The children with SLI were tested for language impairment and dyslexia. Seven retained a diagnosis of SLI but were dyslexia-free (SLI-only), 13 received a comorbid diagnosis of dyslexia (SLI-D), and SLI had become history (SLI-H) in the other 10 children with no co-morbid diagnoses of dyslexia. The SLI-only group did worse on textual comprehension, but better on left-right reversal (an orthographic skill), than the SLI-D group. The SLI-only and the SLI-D group shared the same range of cognitive deficits relative to age norms and showed no difference in phonological processing. The SLI-D group did worse than the normal group on phonological representation, and both the SLI-only and the SLI-D group had difficulties with morphological awareness.

Effectiveness of cognitive training for Chinese elderly in Hong Kong

In Hong Kong, the evidence for cognitive-training programs in fighting against memory complaints is lacking. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the Active Mind cognitive-training program in improving the cognitive function and quality of life (QoL) for local community-dwelling Chinese older adults. A total of 200 subjects were recruited from 20 different district elderly community centers (DECCs). Centers were randomly assigned into either the intervention group or control group. The intervention group underwent eight 1-hour sessions of cognitive training, while the control group were included in the usual group activities provided by the DECCs. Standardized neuropsychological tests (the Chinese version of Mattis Dementia Rating Scale [CDRS] and the Cantonese version of the Mini-Mental State Examination) and the QoL questionnaire SF12 were used to assess participants’ cognitive function and QoL before and after the trial. A total of 176 subjects completed the study. The intervention group showed greater improvement in the cognitive function measured by total CDRS score (treatment: 12.24 ± 11.57 vs control: 4.37 ± 7.99; P < 0.001) and QoL measured by total SF12 score (treatment: 7.82 ± 13.19 vs control: 3.18 ± 11.61; P = 0.014). Subjects with lower education level were associated with better cognitive response to the cognitive-training program. The current findings indicated that the Active Mind cognitive-training program was effective in improving the cognitive function and QoL for community-dwelling Chinese older adults in Hong Kong.

Development of reading-related skills in Chinese and English among Hong Kong Chinese children with and without dyslexia

This 2-year longitudinal study sought to identify a developmental pattern of Chinese and English reading skills in children with and without dyslexia from 6 to 8years of age. Three groups of 15 children each-those with dyslexia, age-matched (AM) controls, and reading-matched (RM) controls-participated. Dyslexia was diagnosed at 8years of age. All children were tested on phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN), morphological awareness, word reading, and vocabulary knowledge in both Chinese and English and also speed of processing skill. AM controls outperformed the group with dyslexia on all measures except for phonological awareness, English word reading, and vocabulary. However, those with dyslexia and AM controls developed at a similar rate across all reading-related skills from 6 to 8years of age. Compared with the RM controls, the group with dyslexia scored higher in phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and vocabulary knowledge in both Chinese and English and also in English word reading but scored similarly in RAN. Children with dyslexia, thus, manifested clear difficulties in Chinese vocabulary knowledge, morphological awareness, and RAN as well as general speed of processing, representing a developmental lag in cognitive skills. Among these, RAN deficits are likely to be the most severe deficits in Chinese children with dyslexia.

Early Oral Language Markers of Poor Reading Performance in Hong Kong Chinese Children

This study investigated the extent to which language skills at ages 2 to 4 years could discriminate Hong Kong Chinese poor from adequate readers at age 7. Selected were 41 poor readers (age M = 87.6 months) and 41 adequate readers (age M = 88.3 months). The two groups were matched on age, parents’ education levels, and nonverbal intelligence. The following language tasks were tested at different ages: vocabulary checklist and Cantonese articulation test at age 2; nonword repetition, Cantonese articulation, and receptive grammar at age 3; and nonword repetition, receptive grammar, sentence imitation, and story comprehension at age 4. Significant differences between the poor and adequate readers were found in the age 2 vocabulary knowledge, age 3 Cantonese articulation, and age 4 receptive grammar skill, sentence imitation, and story comprehension. Among these measures, sentence imitation showed the greatest power in discriminating poor and adequate readers.