David Braze

Speaking Up for Vocabulary Reading Skill Differences in Young Adults

This study is part of a broader project aimed at developing cognitive and neurocognitive profiles of adolescent and young adult readers whose educational and occupational prospects are constrained by their limited literacy skills. We explore the relationships among reading-related abilities in participants ages 16 to 24 years spanning a wide range of reading ability. Two specific questions are addressed: (a) Does the simple view of reading capture all nonrandom variation in reading comprehension? (b) Does orally assessed vocabulary knowledge account for variance in reading comprehension, as predicted by the lexical quality hypothesis? A comprehensive battery of cognitive and educational tests was employed to assess phonological awareness, decoding, verbal working memory, listening comprehension, reading comprehension, word knowledge, and experience with print. In this heterogeneous sample, decoding ability clearly played an important role in reading comprehension. The simple view of reading gave a reasonable fit to the data, although it did not capture all of the reliable variance in reading comprehension as predicted. Orally assessed vocabulary knowledge captured unique variance in reading comprehension even after listening comprehension and decoding skill were accounted for. We explore how a specific connectionist model of lexical representation and lexical access can account for these findings.

Readers' eye movements distinguish anomalies of form and content.

Evidence is presented that eye-movement patterns during reading distinguish costs associated with the syntactic processing of sentences from costs associated with relating sentence meaning to real world probabilities. Participants (N = 30) read matching sets of sentences that differed by a single word, making the sentence syntactically anomalous (but understandable), pragmatically anomalous, or non-anomalous. Syntactic and pragmatic anomaly each caused perturbations in eye movements. Subsequent to the anomaly, the patterns diverged. Syntactic anomaly generated many regressions initially, with rapid return to baseline. Pragmatic anomaly resulted in lengthened reading times, followed by a gradual increase in regressions that reached a maximum at the end of the sentence. Evidence of rapid sensitivity to pragmatic information supports the use of timing data in resolving the debate over the autonomy of linguistic processing. The divergent patterns of eye movements support indications from neurocognitive studies of a principled distinction between syntactic and pragmatic processing procedures within the language processing mechanism.

Reading Differences and Brain: Cortical Integration of Speech and Print in Sentence Processing Varies With Reader Skill

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to investigate the impact of literacy skills in young adults on the distribution of cerebral activity during comprehension of sentences in spoken and printed form. The aim was to discover where speech and print streams merge, and whether their convergence is affected by the level of reading skill. The results from different analyses all point to the conclusion that neural integration of sentence processing across speech and print varies positively with the readers skill. Further, they identify the inferior frontal region as the principal site of speech–print integration and a major focus of reading comprehension differences. The findings provide new evidence of the role of the inferior frontal region in supporting supramodal systems of linguistic representation.

Aspectual inflection, verb raising and object fronting in American sign language

Abstract This paper examines the object fronting construction of American sign language (Liddell, S., 1980. American Sign Language Syntax. Mouton, The Hague; Matsuoka, K., 1997. Verb missing in American sign language. Lingua 103, 127–149), and its relation to verb raising and aspectual inflection. In this construction, word order, canonically S–V–O, is modified to O–S–V. Matsuoka argues persuasively for a relationship between object fronting and overt verb raising, driven by the presence of an affixal verbal inflection [Lasnik, H. 1995b. Verbal morphology: syntactic structures meets the minimalist program. In: Campos, H. and Kempchinsky, P. (Eds.), Evolution and Revolution in Linguistic Theory. Georgetown University Press, Washington, DC, pp. 251–275]. Thus, her analysis reduces ASL object fronting to an instance of ‘object shift’ as occurs in the Scandinavian language family. However, evidence is provided here, from the distributions of adverbs and modals, and from the interaction of object fronting with question formation and raising contexts, which indicates that ASL object fronting targets a position high in the clause. A new model of ASL object fronting is developed against the backdrop of Matsuoka and the Lasnik theory of verbal morphology. This new framework has much in common with Matsuokas account, while attaining greater empirical coverage. In this framework, as in Matsuoka, overt verb raising is triggered by the presence of an aspectual head (Asp). However, I argue that AspP is part of an articulated COMP layer [Rizzi, L. 1997. The fine structure of the left periphery. In: Haegeman, L. (Ed.), Elements of Grammar: Handbook in Generative Syntax. Kluwer, Dordrecht. pp. 281–337]. Object fronting targets spec-AspP, an A′-position. This model is shown to provide a better account of the distribution of adverbs and modals in object-fronted clauses, as well as explanations of the behavior of object fronted clauses in questions and in embedded contexts. Lasniks model of verbal morphology is extended such that verbs in (some varieties of) ASL allow both derivational and lexical options for aspectual inflection. This mechanism provides for an explanation of the infelicity of object fronted clauses in embedded contexts. The analysis crucially relies on the categorial status of object-fronted clauses and the mechanism of c-selection.

Immediate memory for pseudowords and phonological awareness are associated in adults and pre-reading children

This study investigated phonological components of reading skill at two ages, using a novel pseudoword repetition task for assessing phonological memory (PM). Pseudowords were designed to incorporate control over segmental, prosodic and lexical features. In Experiment 1, the materials were administered to 3- and 4-year-old children together with a standardized test of phonological awareness (PA). PA and pseudoword repetition showed a moderate positive correlation, independent of age. Experiment 2, which targeted young adults, employed the same pseudoword materials, with a different administration protocol, together with standardized indices of PA, other memory measures and decoding skill. The results showed moderate to strong positive correlations among our novel pseudoword repetition task, measures of PM and PA and decoding. Together, the findings demonstrate the feasibility of assessing PM with the same carefully controlled materials at widely spaced points in age, adding to present resources for assessing PM and better enabling future studies to map the development of relationships among phonological capabilities in both typically developing children and those with language-related impairments.

Individual differences in decoding skill, print exposure, and cortical structure in young adults

ABSTRACT This exploratory study investigated relations between individual differences in cortical grey matter structure and young adult readers’ cognitive profiles. Whole-brain analyses revealed neuroanatomical correlations with word and nonword reading ability (decoding), and experience with printed matter. Decoding was positively correlated with grey matter volume (GMV) in left superior temporal sulcus, and thickness (GMT) in right superior temporal gyrus. Print exposure was negatively correlated with GMT in left inferior frontal gyrus (pars opercularis) and left fusiform gyrus (including the visual word form area). Both measures also correlated with supramarginal gyrus (SMG), but in spatially distinct subregions: decoding was positively associated with GMV in left anterior SMG, and print exposure was negatively associated with GMT in left posterior SMG. Our comprehensive approach to assessment both confirms and refines our understanding of the novel relation between the structure of pSMG and proficient reading, and unifies previous research relating cortical structure and reading skill.