Florence George

Extra-large letter spacing improves reading in dyslexia.

Although the causes of dyslexia are still debated, all researchers agree that the main challenge is to find ways that allow a child with dyslexia to read more words in less time, because reading more is undisputedly the most efficient intervention for dyslexia. Sophisticated training programs exist, but they typically target the component skills of reading, such as phonological awareness. After the component skills have improved, the main challenge remains (that is, reading deficits must be treated by reading more—a vicious circle for a dyslexic child). Here, we show that a simple manipulation of letter spacing substantially improved text reading performance on the fly (without any training) in a large, unselected sample of Italian and French dyslexic children. Extra-large letter spacing helps reading, because dyslexics are abnormally affected by crowding, a perceptual phenomenon with detrimental effects on letter recognition that is modulated by the spacing between letters. Extra-large letter spacing may help to break the vicious circle by rendering the reading material more easily accessible.

Predictors of developmental dyslexia in European orthographies with varying complexity

BACKGROUND  The relationship between phoneme awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN), verbal short-term/working memory (ST/WM) and diagnostic category is investigated in control and dyslexic children, and the extent to which this depends on orthographic complexity. METHODS General cognitive, phonological and literacy skills were tested in 1,138 control and 1,114 dyslexic children speaking six different languages spanning a large range of orthographic complexity (Finnish, Hungarian, German, Dutch, French, English). RESULTS Phoneme deletion and RAN were strong concurrent predictors of developmental dyslexia, while verbal ST/WM and general verbal abilities played a comparatively minor role. In logistic regression models, more participants were classified correctly when orthography was more complex. The impact of phoneme deletion and RAN-digits was stronger in complex than in less complex orthographies. CONCLUSIONS Findings are largely consistent with the literature on predictors of dyslexia and literacy skills, while uniquely demonstrating how orthographic complexity exacerbates some symptoms of dyslexia.

Genetic analysis of dyslexia candidate genes in the European cross-linguistic NeuroDys cohort

Dyslexia is one of the most common childhood disorders with a prevalence of around 5–10% in school-age children. Although an important genetic component is known to have a role in the aetiology of dyslexia, we are far from understanding the molecular mechanisms leading to the disorder. Several candidate genes have been implicated in dyslexia, including DYX1C1, DCDC2, KIAA0319, and the MRPL19/C2ORF3 locus, each with reports of both positive and no replications. We generated a European cross-linguistic sample of school-age children – the NeuroDys cohort – that includes more than 900 individuals with dyslexia, sampled with homogenous inclusion criteria across eight European countries, and a comparable number of controls. Here, we describe association analysis of the dyslexia candidate genes/locus in the NeuroDys cohort. We performed both case–control and quantitative association analyses of single markers and haplotypes previously reported to be dyslexia-associated. Although we observed association signals in samples from single countries, we did not find any marker or haplotype that was significantly associated with either case–control status or quantitative measurements of word-reading or spelling in the meta-analysis of all eight countries combined. Like in other neurocognitive disorders, our findings underline the need for larger sample sizes to validate possibly weak genetic effects.

Lien entre dénomination rapide et lecture chez les enfants dyslexiques

Cette etude vise a mieux comprendre le lien entre denomination rapide (RAN ou Rapid Automatized Naming) et lecture. Une experience a ete realisee aupres d’enfants dyslexiques, dans laquelle nous avons compare deux versions du RAN: une version continue et une version discrete. Dans la version continue, tous les items a denommer sont presentes en meme temps sur papier (version classique), tandis que dans la version discrete, les items sont presentes successivement sur ordinateur, reduisant ainsi l’implication des facteurs visuo-attentionels (par exemple, controle oculaire). Pour chaque version, nous avons compare trois types de stimuli variant dans leur degre d’automaticite (i. e., des chiffres, des lettres et des objets). Nos resultats montrent que les enfants dyslexiques ont des deficits comparables dans les deux versions de la tâche ce qui suggere que les facteurs visuo-attentionels ne peuvent expliquer a eux seuls le deficit obtenu dans RAN. Par ailleurs, la comparaison des differents types de stimuli ne permet pas de conclure en faveur d’un deficit general lie a l’automatisation des processus cognitifs. En revanche, nos resultats suggerent que les enfants dyslexiques ont des problemes pour acceder de facon rapide et automatique aux representations phonologiques, une capacite fondamentale pour l’apprentissage de la lecture.

Global and local pitch perception in children with developmental dyslexia

This study investigated global versus local pitch pattern perception in children with dyslexia aged between 8 and 11 years. Children listened to two consecutive 4-tone pitch sequences while performing a same/different task. On the different trials, sequences either preserved the contour (local condition) or they violated the contour (global condition). Compared to normally developing children, dyslexics showed robust pitch perception deficits in the local but not the global condition. This finding was replicated in a simple pitch direction task, which minimizes sequencing and short term memory. Results are consistent with a left-hemisphere deficit in dyslexia because local pitch changes are supposedly processed by the left hemisphere, whereas global pitch changes are processed by the right hemisphere. The present data suggest a link between impaired pitch processing and abnormal phonological development in children with dyslexia, which makes pitch pattern processing a potent tool for early diagnosis and remediation of dyslexia.