- The Hospital for Sick Children, Learning Disabilities Research Program, Department MemberUniversity of Toronto, Faculty of Medicine, Faculty Memberadd
- Associate Director of the Haskins Global Literacy Hub at Haskins Labs. Senior Scientist Emerita in the Neurosciences ... moreAssociate Director of the Haskins Global Literacy Hub at Haskins Labs. Senior Scientist Emerita in the Neurosciences & Mental Health Program at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), and Professor Emerita of Paediatrics at the University of Toronto. Founder and Director of the SickKids Learning Disabilities Research Program, a clinical research unit that developed and evaluated different approaches to intervention for children and adolescents with developmental reading disabilities. That program continues as the Empower Reading and Learning Program at SickKids.edit
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Worldwide, the majority of people prefer using the right hand for most motor tasks, including writing. Because of the link between handedness and language hemispheric dominance, handedness has been studied for association with... more
Worldwide, the majority of people prefer using the right hand for most motor tasks, including writing. Because of the link between handedness and language hemispheric dominance, handedness has been studied for association with language-related disorders. No clear pattern has emerged from these studies, and inconsistencies have been attributed to small sample sizes, publication bias, and heterogeneous criteria for the definition of handedness and disorders.Here, we assessed the frequency of non-right handedness (NRH) in 10 distinct cohorts not analysed before in this context. We identified N = 2,499 cases with reading and/or language impairment and N = 4,428 unique controls on the basis of a priori defined criteria. Overall, NRH was more frequent and more variable in the cases (8-24%) than in the controls (8-16%). Meta-analysis in the eight cohorts that met the inclusion criteria showed an increase of NRH in individuals with language/reading impairment compared to controls (OR = 1.21, CI = 1.06 - 1.37, p = 0.009). No moderator effects were detected for type of cohort (epidemiological versus clinical) and type of impairment (language versus reading). Our results support a genuine but modest association between NRH and reading and language impairments, suggesting shared biological pathways underlying brain lateralization, handedness, and cognitive functions.
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ABSTRACTDyslexia is a common specific learning disability with a strong genetic basis that affects word reading and spelling. An increasing list of loci and genes have been implicated, but analyses to-date investigated only limited... more
ABSTRACTDyslexia is a common specific learning disability with a strong genetic basis that affects word reading and spelling. An increasing list of loci and genes have been implicated, but analyses to-date investigated only limited genomic variation within each locus with no confirmed pathogenic variants. In a collection of >2000 participants in families enrolled at three independent sites, we performed targeted capture and comprehensive sequencing of all exons and some regulatory elements of five candidate dyslexia risk genes (DNAAF4,CYP19A1,DCDC2,KIAA0319andGRIN2B) for which prior evidence of association exists from more than one sample. For each of six dyslexia-related phenotypes we used both individual-single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and aggregate testing of multiple SNPs to evaluate evidence for association. We detected no promoter alterations and few potentially deleterious variants in the coding exons, none of which showed evidence of association with any phenotype. A...
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Reading Disability (RD) is often characterized by difficulties in the phonology of the language. While the molecular mechanisms underlying it are largely undetermined, loci are being revealed by genome-wide association studies (GWAS). In... more
Reading Disability (RD) is often characterized by difficulties in the phonology of the language. While the molecular mechanisms underlying it are largely undetermined, loci are being revealed by genome-wide association studies (GWAS). In a previous GWAS for word reading (Price, 2020), we observed that top single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were located near to or in genes involved in neuronal migration/axon guidance (NM/AG) or loci implicated in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). A prominent theory of RD etiology posits that it involves disturbed neuronal migration, while potential links between RD-ASD have not been extensively investigated. To improve power to identify associated loci, we up-weighted variants involved in NM/AG or ASD, separately, and performed a new Hypothesis-Driven (HD)–GWAS. The approach was applied to a Toronto RD sample and a meta-analysis of the GenLang Consortium. For the Toronto sample (n = 624), no SNPs reached significance; however, by gene-set analysis,...
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The use of spoken and written language is a fundamental human capacity. Individual differences in reading- and language-related skills are influenced by genetic variation, with twin-based heritability estimates of 30 to 80% depending on... more
The use of spoken and written language is a fundamental human capacity. Individual differences in reading- and language-related skills are influenced by genetic variation, with twin-based heritability estimates of 30 to 80% depending on the trait. The genetic architecture is complex, heterogeneous, and multifactorial, but investigations of contributions of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were thus far underpowered. We present a multicohort genome-wide association study (GWAS) of five traits assessed individually using psychometric measures (word reading, nonword reading, spelling, phoneme awareness, and nonword repetition) in samples of 13,633 to 33,959 participants aged 5 to 26 y. We identified genome-wide significant association with word reading (rs11208009, P = 1.098 × 10 −8 ) at a locus that has not been associated with intelligence or educational attainment. All five reading-/language-related traits showed robust SNP heritability, accounting for 13 to 26% of trait varia...
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ABSTRACTReading and writing are crucial for many aspects of modern life but up to 1 in 10 children are affected by dyslexia [1, 2], which can persist into adulthood. Family studies of dyslexia suggest heritability up to 70% [3, 4], yet no... more
ABSTRACTReading and writing are crucial for many aspects of modern life but up to 1 in 10 children are affected by dyslexia [1, 2], which can persist into adulthood. Family studies of dyslexia suggest heritability up to 70% [3, 4], yet no convincing genetic markers have been found due to limited study power [5]. Here, we present a genome-wide association study representing a 20-fold increase in sample size from prior work, with 51,800 adults self-reporting a dyslexia diagnosis and 1,087,070 controls. We identified 42 independent genome-wide significant loci: 17 are in genes linked to or pleiotropic with cognitive ability/educational attainment; 25 are novel and may be more specifically associated with dyslexia. Twenty-three loci (12 novel) were validated in independent cohorts of Chinese and European ancestry. We confirmed a similar genetic aetiology of dyslexia between sexes, and found genetic covariance with many traits, including ambidexterity, but not neuroanatomical measures of...
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A total of 178 reading disabled children were randomly assigned to one of three treatment conditions providing training in word recognition and decoding skills (DS), oral and written language (OWLS), or classroom survival skills (CSS. an... more
A total of 178 reading disabled children were randomly assigned to one of three treatment conditions providing training in word recognition and decoding skills (DS), oral and written language (OWLS), or classroom survival skills (CSS. an alternative treatment control). Pre- and post-treatment comparisons on an array of standardized and experimental measures indicated that the two experimental treatments (DS, OWLS) resulted in improvement on selected tests significantly greater than that resulting from a third treatment intervention which controlled for treatment time and individual attention (CSS). Effects specific to each experimental treatment were identified, as well as some generalized treatment advantages shared by both experimental groups at post-test. These results indicate that some of the deficits associated with developmental dyslexia are amenable to treatment. Greater generalization of treatment effects was observed following the DS than the OWLS treatment. While DS-instructed children exhibited better word recognition skills, however, their knowledge of grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules was not improved. Several OWLS-specific effects observed on experimental reading and language measures were not replicated on standardized tests which purport to measure the same skills. These results are discussed with respect to (i) possible mechanisms by which disabled readers may acquire word recognition skills, (ii) their failure to acquire and use grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules, and (iii) a possible reduced tendency in the present population to generalize newly acquired specific knowledge to related knowledge domains.
Research Interests: Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Phonetics, Methodology, Adolescent, and 15 moreComparative Study, Dyslexia, Medicine, Generalization, Brain, Humans, Child, Female, Achievement, Male, Decoding, Nino, Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, Language Development Disorders, and Medical and Health Sciences
PHAST (for Phonological and Strategy Training) is a research-based remedial reading program that attempts to capitalize upon current research on reading disabilities and their remediation. The focus of the program is on the primary... more
PHAST (for Phonological and Strategy Training) is a research-based remedial reading program that attempts to capitalize upon current research on reading disabilities and their remediation. The focus of the program is on the primary obstacles to word identification learning and independent decoding that most disabled readers face and the steps necessary to help these children achieve independent reading skills. A framework of phonologically based remediation was used as a foundation upon which a set of flexible and effective word identification strategies were scaffolded in an integrated developmental sequence. The program uses a combination of direct instruction and dialogue-based metacognitive training, with the pedagogical emphasis shifting from an initial direct instruction, remedial focus to increasingly metacognitive-strategy-based methods. A continuum of intervention over 70 hours provides both (a) remediation of the basic phonological awareness and letter-sound-learning deficits of disabled readers and (b) specific training of five word identification strategies that offer different approaches to the decoding of unfamiliar words and exposure to different levels of subsyllabic segmentation. Explicit instruction in the application and monitoring of multiple word identification strategies and their application to text-reading activities continues throughout the PHAST Program. PHAST training provides the disabled reader with the opportunity to become a flexible reader who approaches new words in or out of context with multiple strategies and has the ability to evaluate the success of their application. The PHAST Program was developed following the controlled evaluation of its components in laboratory classroom settings and recent positive results from their sequential combination. PHAST represents a new integrated approach to programming in this area using instructional components that have already demonstrated their efficacy with children with severe reading disabilities.
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Research Interests: Program Evaluation, Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, Phonology, and 15 moreEducational Psychology, Phonological Awareness, Metacognition, Reading, Dyslexia, Elementary Education, Direct Instruction, Reading Disability, Educational, Teaching Methods, Intervention, Trend Analysis, Remedial Instruction In English, Reading Process, and Treatment Effect
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We are particularly grateful to Dr. Annemarie Sullivan Palincsar for her helpful advice and generosity in sharing materials, procedures, and sample dialogues for use in the version of Reciprocal Teaching used in the present study. This... more
We are particularly grateful to Dr. Annemarie Sullivan Palincsar for her helpful advice and generosity in sharing materials, procedures, and sample dialogues for use in the version of Reciprocal Teaching used in the present study. This research was supported by an operating grant to the first author from the Ontario Mental Health Foundation. We gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Janet Hinchley and Karen Steinbach in assisting with data collection and Nancy Benson, Carolyn Kroeber, and Karen Steinbach in assisting with data analysis. We thank Sheila Wroblewski and Rosemary Slyne for their contributions in program development and lesson planning. We are grateful to the Principals and staff of Winona and Jesse Ketchem Schools and the Toronto Board of Education for providing satellite locations and support for our programs. The enthusiasm and efforts of the 46 students enrolled in the present programs, and the cooperation and interest of their parents and teachers, are particularly acknowledged.
Research Interests: Psychology, Education, Cognition, Reading Comprehension, Comparative Study, and 15 moreDyslexia, Medicine, Learning, Problem Solving, Humans, Generosity, Comprehension, Female, Male, Enthusiasm, Knowledge base, Information Content, Adult, Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, and Medical and Health Sciences
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The cohesive use of referential language in narrative production reveals communicative goals as well as specific aspects of language use. A formalism for analyzing pronominal cohesion was developed and applied to the narrative discourse... more
The cohesive use of referential language in narrative production reveals communicative goals as well as specific aspects of language use. A formalism for analyzing pronominal cohesion was developed and applied to the narrative discourse of three hemidecorticate adolescents. The results revealed hemisphere-dependent differences in overall narrative skill as well as distinct individual discourse strategies. Neither left hemidecorticate planned narration in extended discourse units: One demonstrated a linear and highly explicit discourse style with redundant over-statement of referent nouns and the other produced narratives cluttered with pronouns of both correct and ambiguous reference, relying on nonpersonal pronouns at considerable cost to narrative specificity. The right hemidecorticate produced narratives that were more economical in form and richer in content: He was the only subject able to maintain simultaneous story lines with multiple pronouns and referential relationships cohesively embedded. All subjects expressed at least some story content, but only the right hemidecorticate narratives conveyed suggestion and implication as well as explicit statement.
Research Interests: Psychology, Semantics, Narrative, Aphasia, Epilepsy, and 14 moreLinguistics, Adolescent, Medicine, Humans, Female, Male, Noun, Language Culture and Communication, Acquired Dyslexia, Referent, Sturge Weber Syndrome, Postoperative Complications, Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, and Medical and Health Sciences
This article explores whether struggling readers from different primary language backgrounds differ in response to phonologically based remediation. Following random assignment to one of three reading interventions or to a special... more
This article explores whether struggling readers from different primary language backgrounds differ in response to phonologically based remediation. Following random assignment to one of three reading interventions or to a special education reading control program, reading and reading-related outcomes of 166 struggling readers were assessed before, during, and following 105 intervention hours. Struggling readers met criteria for reading disability, were below average in oral language and verbal skills, and varied in English as a first language (EFL) versus English-language learner (ELL) status. The research-based interventions proved superior to the special education control on both reading outcomes and rate of growth. No differences were revealed for children of EFL or ELL status in intervention outcomes or growth during intervention. Oral language abilities at entry were highly predictive of final outcomes and of reading growth during intervention, with greater language impairment...
Research Interests: Psychology, Phonetics, Multilingualism, English language, Language, and 15 moreResponse to Intervention, Dyslexia, Medicine, Language disorders, Learning Disabilities, Learning, Curriculum, Reading Disability, Humans, Female, Male, Psychological Intervention, Learning Strategies, English Language, and Reading Process
There is a wide gap between what research evidence identifies as effective reading intervention and what is currently offered in schools. This effectiveness study reports results of a long-term research/school system partnership that is... more
There is a wide gap between what research evidence identifies as effective reading intervention and what is currently offered in schools. This effectiveness study reports results of a long-term research/school system partnership that is implementing reading intervention for children with reading difficulties in community schools. In Study 1, growth curve analyses revealed significant long-term shifts in the reading trajectories of children (n=731) from Kindergarten to Grade 5 as a function of receiving the Empower™ Reading: Decoding and Spelling intervention. Long-term outcomes were higher in children who received intervention in Grade 2 than Grade 3, supporting the benefit of earlier intervention. In Study 2, we compare reading outcomes before and after children participated in school system-led intervention (Empower™ Reading, n=341) to results from previously reported researcher-led intervention and business-as-usual controls (Lovett et al., 2017). Children in both school system-l...
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Background: Reading disabilities (RD) are the most common learning disabilities, affecting 3-7% of school-aged children in North America. RD is associated with increased risk for comorbid language-based disorders including early language... more
Background: Reading disabilities (RD) are the most common learning disabilities, affecting 3-7% of school-aged children in North America. RD is associated with increased risk for comorbid language-based disorders including early language delay (ELD), speech sound disorders, and language impairments. Despite decades of research on the relationship between RD and these disorders, questions remain as to the strength of their associations. This study is the first of this size to assess all four disorders in a sample of children with RD. Method: We examined the association these disorders in a large, well-characterized family-based sample, recruited for reading difficulties in school-aged children. Parents of 492 families (674 children) completed a questionnaire that queried ELD, and current speech and language difficulties in their children. Children were also directly assessed for multiple quantitative measures of language and reading. Children were divided into three groups: Reading D...
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Preliminary efficacy data are reported for a research-based reading intervention designed for struggling readers in high school. PHAST PACES teaches (a) word identification strategies, (b) knowledge of text structures, and (c) reading... more
Preliminary efficacy data are reported for a research-based reading intervention designed for struggling readers in high school. PHAST PACES teaches (a) word identification strategies, (b) knowledge of text structures, and (c) reading comprehension strategies. In a quasi-experimental design, 268 intervention and 83 waiting list control students meeting criteria for read-ing disability were assessed before and after their semester. After 60 to 70 hours of PHAST PACES instruction, struggling readers demonstrated significant gains on standardized tests of word attack, word reading, and passage comprehension and on experimental measures of letter–sound knowledge and multisyllabic word identification relative to control students. An average effect size of.68 was revealed across these outcome measures. One year follow-up data on 197 PHAST PACES students revealed an average trend to decelerated growth after the intervention, except for passage comprehension out-comes that demonstrated cont...
Achievement and cognitive tests are used extensively in the diagnosis and educational placement of children with reading disabilities (RD). Moreover, research on scholastic interventions often requires repeat testing and information on... more
Achievement and cognitive tests are used extensively in the diagnosis and educational placement of children with reading disabilities (RD). Moreover, research on scholastic interventions often requires repeat testing and information on practice effects. Little is known, however, about the test–retest and other psychometric properties of many commonly used measures within the beginning reader population, nor are these nationally normed or experimental measures comparatively evaluated. This study examined the test–retest reliability, practice effects, and relations among a number of nationally normed measures of word identification and spelling and experimental measures of achievement and reading-related cognitive processing tests in young children with significant RD. Reliability was adequate for most tests, although lower than might be ideal on a few measures when there was a lengthy test–retest interval or with the reduced behavioral variability that can be seen in groups of beginn...
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ABSTRACTReading disability is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder that is characterized by difficulties in reading despite educational opportunity and normal intelligence. Performance on rapid automatized naming (RAN) and rapid... more
ABSTRACTReading disability is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder that is characterized by difficulties in reading despite educational opportunity and normal intelligence. Performance on rapid automatized naming (RAN) and rapid alternating stimulus (RAS) tests gives a reliable predictor of reading outcome. These tasks involve the integration of different neural and cognitive processes required in a mature reading brain. Most studies examining the genetic factors that contribute to RAN and RAS performance have focused on pedigree-based analyses in samples of European descent, with limited representation of groups with Hispanic or African ancestry. In the present study, we conducted a multivariate genome-wide association analysis to identify shared genetic factors that contribute to performance across RAN Objects, RAN Letters, and RAS Letters/Numbers in a sample of Hispanic and African American youth (n=1,331). We then tested whether these factors also contribute to variance in read...
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Concurrent validity of the Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test (K-BIT) with the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Third Edition (WISC-III) was evaluated, as well as the K-BIT's accuracy as a predictor of WISC-III scores, in a... more
Concurrent validity of the Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test (K-BIT) with the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Third Edition (WISC-III) was evaluated, as well as the K-BIT's accuracy as a predictor of WISC-III scores, in a sample of young children with reading disabilities. The two measures were administered to 65 children from Atlanta, Boston, and Toronto who ranged from 6-5 to 7-11 years of age at testing. Correlations between the verbal, nonverbal, and composite scales of the K-BIT and WISC-III were .60, .48, and .63, respectively. Mean K-BIT scores ranged from 1.2 to 5.0 points higher than the corresponding WISC-III scores. Standard errors of estimation ranged from 10.0 to 12.3 points. In individual cases, KBIT scores can underestimate or overestimate WISC-III scores by as much as 25 points. Results suggest caution against using the K-BIT exclusively for placement and diagnostic purposes with young children with reading disabilities if IQ scores are required. Intellige...
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Developmental dyslexia (DD) is a common reading disability, affecting 5% to 11% of children in North America. Children classified as having DD often have a history of early language delay (ELD) or language impairments. Nevertheless,... more
Developmental dyslexia (DD) is a common reading disability, affecting 5% to 11% of children in North America. Children classified as having DD often have a history of early language delay (ELD) or language impairments. Nevertheless, studies have reported conflicting results as to the association between DD-ELD and the extent of current language difficulties in children with DD. To examine these relationships, we queried the parents of school-age children with reading difficulties on their child’s early and current language ability. Siblings were also examined. Children were directly assessed using quantitative tests of language and reading skills. To compare this study with the literature, we divided the sample ( N = 674) into three groups: DD, intermediate readers (IR), and skilled readers (SR). We found a significant association between DD and ELD, with parents of children in the DD/IR groups reporting their children put words together later than the SR group. We also found a sign...
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Daphne Greenberg, Inga Einarson, Christine Miller, Devi Rodgerson, Lea Lacerenza, and Maureen W. Lovett
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The use of spoken and written language is a capacity that is unique to humans. Individual differences in reading- and language-related skills are influenced by genetic variation, with twin-based heritability estimates of 30-80%, depending... more
The use of spoken and written language is a capacity that is unique to humans. Individual differences in reading- and language-related skills are influenced by genetic variation, with twin-based heritability estimates of 30-80%, depending on the trait. The relevant genetic architecture is complex, heterogeneous, and multifactorial, and yet to be investigated with well-powered studies. Here, we present a multicohort genome-wide association study (GWAS) of five traits assessed individually using psychometric measures: word reading, nonword reading, spelling, phoneme awareness, and nonword repetition, with total sample sizes ranging from 13,633 to 33,959 participants aged 5-26 years (12,411 to 27,180 for those with European ancestry, defined by principal component analyses). We identified a genome-wide significant association with word reading (rs11208009, p=1.098 × 10−8) independent of known loci associated with intelligence or educational attainment. All five reading-/language-relate...
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The present study investigated the relation among reading skills and attributions, naming speed, and phonological awareness across a wide range of reading skill. Participants were 1,105 school-age children and youths from two understudied... more
The present study investigated the relation among reading skills and attributions, naming speed, and phonological awareness across a wide range of reading skill. Participants were 1,105 school-age children and youths from two understudied populations: African Americans and Hispanic Americans. Individual assessments of children ranging in age from 8 to 15 years were conducted for reading outcomes, cognitive and linguistic predictors of reading, and attributions for success and failure in reading situations. Quantile regressions were formulated to estimate these relations across the full skill span of each outcome. Reading-related attributions predicted contextual word recognition, sight word and decoding fluency, and comprehension skills. Attributions to ability in success situations were positively related to each outcome across the full span. On three reading outcomes, this relation strengthened at higher skill levels. Attributions to effort in success situations were consistently and negatively related to all reading outcomes. The results provide evidence that the strength of the relation between reading and attributions varies according to reading skill levels, with the strongest evidence for ability-based attributions in situations of reading success.
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Across multiple schools and sites, the impact of grade-at-intervention was evaluated for children at risk or meeting criteria for reading disabilities. A multiple-component reading intervention with demonstrated efficacy was offered to... more
Across multiple schools and sites, the impact of grade-at-intervention was evaluated for children at risk or meeting criteria for reading disabilities. A multiple-component reading intervention with demonstrated efficacy was offered to small groups of children in 1st, 2nd, or 3rd grade. In a quasi-experimental design, 172 children received the Triple-Focus Program (PHAST + RAVE-O), and 47 were control participants. Change during intervention and 1–3 years later (6–8 testing points), and the influence of individual differences in predicting outcomes, were assessed using reading and reading-related repeated measures. Intervention children out-performed control children at posttest on all 14 outcomes, with average effect sizes (Cohen’s d) on standardized measures of .80 and on experimental measures of 1.69. On foundational word reading skills (standardized measures), children who received intervention earlier, in 1st and 2nd grade, made gains relative to controls almost twice that of children receiving intervention in 3rd grade. At follow-up, the advantage of 1st grade intervention was even clearer: First graders continued to grow at faster rates over the follow-up years than 2nd graders on 6 of 8 reading outcomes. For some outcomes with metalinguistic demands beyond the phonological, however, a posttest advantage was revealed for 2nd Grade Triple participants and for 3rd Grade Triple participants relative to controls. Estimated IQ predicted growth during intervention on 7 of 8 outcomes. Growth during follow-up was predicted by vocabulary and visual sequential memory. These findings provide evidence on the importance of early intensive evidence-based intervention for reading problems in the primary grades.
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To evaluate the relative efficacy of two reading programs with and without adjunctive stimulant medication for children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and comorbid reading disorder (ADHD+RD). Sixty-five children (7-11 years... more
To evaluate the relative efficacy of two reading programs with and without adjunctive stimulant medication for children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and comorbid reading disorder (ADHD+RD). Sixty-five children (7-11 years in age) were assigned randomly to one of three intensive remedial academic programs (phonologically or strategy-based reading instruction, or general academic strategy and social skills training) in combination with either immediate-release methylphenidate or placebo. Multiple-blind procedures were used for medication/placebo, given twice daily. Children received 35 hours of instruction in 10 weeks, taught by a trained teacher in a separate school classroom, in small matched groups of 2 to 3. Children's behavior and reading abilities were assessed before and after intervention. Stimulant medication produced expected beneficial effects on hyperactive/impulsive behavioral symptoms (reported by classroom teachers) but none on reading. Children rec...
Research Interests: Dyslexia, Comorbidity, Learning Disabilities, Remediation, Reading Disability, and 11 moreHumans, Child, Female, Male, Methylphenidate, Remedial Teaching, Combined Modality Therapy, Attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity, Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Central nervous system stimulants, and Outcome assessment (Health care)
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Recent studies of co-occurring reading disability (RD) and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and co-occurring RD and language learning disability (LLD), support a core disability plus co-occurrence model focused on language... more
Recent studies of co-occurring reading disability (RD) and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and co-occurring RD and language learning disability (LLD), support a core disability plus co-occurrence model focused on language and attention. Genetic factors have been associated with poor reading performance. However, little is known about whether different genetic variants independently contribute to RD co-occurrence subtypes. We aimed to identify subgroups of struggling readers using a latent profile analysis (LPA) in a sample of 1,432 Hispanic American and African American youth. RD classes were then tested for association with variants of READ1, a regulatory element within the candidate RD risk gene,DCDC2. Six groups were identified in the LPA using RD designation as a known-class variable. The three RD classes identified groups of subjects with neurocognitive profiles representing RD+ADHD, specific phonological deficit RD, and RD+LLD. Genetic associations across RD s...
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Early reading competence : the perception and memory of sentential information, Lovett, Maureen W., Reading comprehension., Children -- Language., Reading (Primary), McGill University, 1977, Electronic Thesis or Dissertation,... more
Early reading competence : the perception and memory of sentential information, Lovett, Maureen W., Reading comprehension., Children -- Language., Reading (Primary), McGill University, 1977, Electronic Thesis or Dissertation, application/pdf, en, alephsysno: 000347633 ...
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Results from a controlled evaluation of remedial reading interventions are reported: 279 young disabled readers were randomly assigned to a program according to a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design (IQ, socioeconomic status [SES], and race). The... more
Results from a controlled evaluation of remedial reading interventions are reported: 279 young disabled readers were randomly assigned to a program according to a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design (IQ, socioeconomic status [SES], and race). The effectiveness of two multiple-component intervention programs for children with reading disabilities (PHAB + RAVE-O; PHAB + WIST) was evaluated against alternate (CSS, MATH) and phonological control programs. Interventions were taught an hour daily for 70 days on a 1:4 ratio at three different sites. Multiple-component programs showed significant improvements relative to control programs on all basic reading skills after 70 hours and at 1-year follow-up. Equivalent gains were observed for different racial, SES, and IQ groups. These factors did not systematically interact with program. Differential outcomes for word identification, fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary were found between the multidimensional programs, although equivalent long-term o...
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This study examined the magnitude of differences in standard scores, convergent validity, and concurrent validity when an individual’s performance was gauged using the revised and the normative update (Woodcock, 1998) editions of the... more
This study examined the magnitude of differences in standard scores, convergent validity, and concurrent validity when an individual’s performance was gauged using the revised and the normative update (Woodcock, 1998) editions of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test in which the actual test items remained identical but norms have been updated. From three metropolitan areas, 899 first to third grade students referred by their teachers for a reading intervention program participated. Results showed the inverse Flynn effect, indicating systematic inflation averaging 5 to 9 standard score points, regardless of gender, IQ, city site, or ethnicity, when calculated using the updated norms. Inflation was greater at lower raw score levels. Implications for using the updated norms for identifying children with reading disabilities and changing norms during an ongoing study are discussed.
One hundred and twenty-two severely reading disabled children were randomly assigned to one of two word identification training programs or a study skills control program. One program remediated deficient phonological analysis and... more
One hundred and twenty-two severely reading disabled children were randomly assigned to one of two word identification training programs or a study skills control program. One program remediated deficient phonological analysis and blending skills and provided direct instruction of letter-sound mappings. The other program taught children how to acquire, use, and monitor four metacognitive decoding strategies. The effectiveness of the remedial programs was evaluated for children in grades 2/3, 4, and 5/6 to determine whether programs were differentially effective at different grade levels. Both training approaches were associated with significant improvement in word identification and word attack skills and sizeable transfer-of-training effects. The phonological program resulted in greater transfer across the phonological processing domain, whereas the strategy training program produced broader transfer for real words of both regular and irregular orthography. Children at each grade l...
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This study examined the magnitude of differences in standard scores, convergent validity, and concurrent validity when an individual’s performance was gauged using the revised and the normative update (Woodcock, 1998) editions of the... more
This study examined the magnitude of differences in standard scores, convergent validity, and concurrent validity when an individual’s performance was gauged using the revised and the normative update (Woodcock, 1998) editions of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test in which the actual test items remained identical but norms have been updated. From three metropolitan areas, 899 first to third grade students referred by their teachers for a reading intervention program participated. Results showed the inverse Flynn effect, indicating systematic inflation averaging 5 to 9 standard score points, regardless of gender, IQ, city site, or ethnicity, when calculated using the updated norms. Inflation was greater at lower raw score levels. Implications for using the updated norms for identifying children with reading disabilities and changing norms during an ongoing study are discussed.
Research Interests: Psychology, Assessment, Psychometrics, Reading, Dyslexia, and 15 moreReading Disability, Norms, Humans, Child, Business and Management, Comprehension, Intervention, Female, Male, Metropolitan Areas, Educational Status, Reproducibility of Results, Intelligence tests, Reference Values, and Neuropsychological Tests
This study reports on several specific neurocognitive process predictors of reading outcomes for a sample of 278 children with reading disabilities. Three categories of response (i.e., poor, average, and good) were formed via growth curve... more
This study reports on several specific neurocognitive process predictors of reading outcomes for a sample of 278 children with reading disabilities. Three categories of response (i.e., poor, average, and good) were formed via growth curve models of six reading outcomes. Two nested discriminant function analyses were conducted to evaluate the predictive capability of the following models: (a) an intervention and phonological processing model that included intervention group, phonological awareness, and rapid naming and (b) an additive cognitive neuropsychological model that included measures of memory, visual processes, and cognitive or intellectual functioning. Over and above the substantial explanatory power of the base model, the additive model improved classification of poor and good responders. Several of the cognitive and neuropsychological variables predicted degree of reading outcomes, even after controlling for type of intervention, phonological awareness, and rapid naming.
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The majority of work on the double-deficit hypothesis (DDH) of dyslexia has been done at the letter and word levels of reading. Key research questions addressed in this study are (a) do readers with different subtypes of dyslexia display... more
The majority of work on the double-deficit hypothesis (DDH) of dyslexia has been done at the letter and word levels of reading. Key research questions addressed in this study are (a) do readers with different subtypes of dyslexia display differences in fluency at particular reading levels (e.g., letter, word, and connected text)? and (b) do children with dyslexia identified by either low-achievement or ability—achievement discrepancy criteria show similar differences when classified by the DDH? To address these questions, the authors assessed a sample of 158 children with severe reading impairments in second and third grades on an extensive battery and classified them into three reader subtypes using the DDH. The results demonstrated that the three DDH subtypes exhibited differences in fluency at different levels of reading (letter, word, and connected text), underscoring the separate reading profiles of these subtypes and the different possible routes to dysfluency in reading disab...