Cognitive-linguistic profiles of Chinese improved dyslexic adolescent readers

Abstract

This study was to identify cognitive-linguistic abilities that might distinguish Hong Kong Chinese improved adolescent readers with developmental dyslexia from non-improved. A total of 84 adolescent readers with 28 improved dyslexics, 28 non-improved dyslexics, and 28 average readers participated and were administered measures of morphological skills, visual-orthographic skills, rapid naming skills, verbal working memory, reading comprehension, writing, word reading, word dictation, and one-minute word reading. Results showed that the improved dyslexics performed better than the non-improved dyslexics in visual-orthographic, word reading, one-minute reading, writing, and reading comprehension. In addition, the improved dyslexics showed comparable performance in the measures of morphological skills, one-minute reading, and reading comprehension to their average readers. Among these measures, morphological and visual-orthographic skills showed the greatest power in discriminating improved and non-improved dyslexics. Findings underscore the importance of cognitive-linguistic processes underlying the manifestations of improved and non-improved dyslexia in Chinese adolescent readers.