Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Language delay is a frequent antecedent of literacy problems, and both may be linked to phonological impairment. Studies on developmental dyslexia have led to contradictory results due to the heterogeneity of the pathological samples. The... more
Language delay is a frequent antecedent of literacy problems, and both may be linked to phonological impairment. Studies on developmental dyslexia have led to contradictory results due to the heterogeneity of the pathological samples. The present study investigated whether Italian children with dyslexia showed selective phonological processing deficits or more widespread linguistic impairment and whether these deficits were associated with previous language delay. We chose 46 children with specific reading deficits and divided them into two groups based on whether they had language delay (LD) or not (NoLD). LD and NoLD children showed similar, severe deficits in reading and spelling decoding, but only LD children showed a moderate impairment in reading comprehension. LD children were more impaired in phonological working memory and phonological fluency, as well as in semantic fluency, grammatical comprehension, and verbal IQ. These findings indicate the presence of a moderate but wi...
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Science, Plasticity, Cognition, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, and 23 moreLaterality, Language, Right Hemisphere Functions, Temporal Lobe, Brain, Humans, Child, Female, Brain Plasticity, Male, Hemiplegia, Neuronal Plasticity, Dichotic Listening, White matter, Time Factors, Neuropsychologia, Left Hemisphere, Right Ear Advantage, Neurosciences, Brain Damage, Nino, Site Effect, and Functional Laterality
The study examined rapid automatized naming (RAN) in 42 children with reading disabilities and 101 control children-all native speakers of Italian, a language with shallow orthography. Third-, 5th- and 6th-grade children were given a RAN... more
The study examined rapid automatized naming (RAN) in 42 children with reading disabilities and 101 control children-all native speakers of Italian, a language with shallow orthography. Third-, 5th- and 6th-grade children were given a RAN test that required rapid naming of color, object, or digit matrices. A visual search test using the same stimulus material (but not requiring a verbal response) and an oral articulation test were also given. Readers with disabilities performed worse than controls on the RAN test. This effect was larger in higher grades than in lower ones. Readers with disabilities were also slower than controls in performing the visual search test. The pattern of results for the RAN test held constant when the visual search performance was partialed out by covariance analysis, indicating the independence of the 2 deficits. The 2 groups did not differ for articulation rate. Finally, analysis of the pattern of intercorrelations indicated that reading speed was most clearly related to RAN, particularly in the group with reading disabilities. The results extend observations of RAN effects on reading deficits to Italian, an orthographically shallow language.
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Science, Mathematics, Semantics, Attention, and 16 moreLanguage, Dyslexia, Color Perception, Visual Search, Automatism, Humans, Child, Orientation, Female, Male, Reaction Time, Verbal behavior, Developmental neuropsychology, Developmental, Developmental Neuropsychology, and Neurosciences
Research Interests: Cognitive Science, Phonetics, Working Memory, Language Development, Phonological processing, and 20 moreSpecific Language Impairment, Language Disorder, Family history, High Frequency, Humans, Child, Female, Male, Cortex, Mental processes, Pedigree, Dichotic Listening, Family Health, Hemispheric Specialization, Short Term Memory, Phonological Encoding, Left Hemisphere, Reference Values, Neurosciences, and Functional Laterality
The study aims to verify whether phonologic and rapid automatized naming (RAN) deficits are present and associated in Italian dyslexic children and whether they differentially affect dyslexics with and without a history of previous... more
The study aims to verify whether phonologic and rapid automatized naming (RAN) deficits are present and associated in Italian dyslexic children and whether they differentially affect dyslexics with and without a history of previous language delay (LD). According to the phonologic core deficit hypothesis, dyslexia may stem from impairment of the representation and manipulation of phonemes and may be closely associated with oral language deficits. However, deficits in tasks not requiring fine-grained phonologic representations, such as RAN, have also been described in dyslexic children. Thirty-seven children were selected on the basis of a reading deficit and were assigned to 2 groups according to whether or not they had a history of early LD as determined retrospectively by parental report. A battery of reading and writing, verbal working memory, metaphonologic, RAN, and visual search tests were administered. RAN deficits were shared by most dyslexics (with and without a history of LD), whereas phonologic deficits were mainly associated with a previous LD. This last condition did not result in a more profound impairment of reading and writing decoding skills. In a shallow orthography such as Italian, RAN, not phonologic deficits, may represent the main cognitive marker of developmental dyslexia.