Multivariate predictive model for dyslexia diagnosis

Heterogeneity of short-term memory deficits in children with dyslexia

Many studies have highlighted short-term memory (STM) impairment in dyslexic individuals. Several studies showed deficits for both item and serial order aspects of verbal STM in dyslexic individuals. These group-based studies, however, do not inform us about the prevalence of these deficits and, importantly, their potential heterogeneity at the individual level. The present study examined both group-level and individual STM profiles in dyslexic and age-matched non-dyslexic children. While confirming previous group-based results of both item and serial order STM deficits, individual analyses indicated two distinct profiles: one profile was associated with verbal item STM and phonological impairment while another profile showed selective serial STM deficits in both verbal and visual domains. Our results highlight the need for practitioners to consider the heterogeneous nature of STM impairment in dyslexia and to adapt STM and reading treatment strategies accordingly.

Investigating Issues and Needs of Dyslexic Students at University: Proof of Concept of an Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality-Based Supporting Platform and Preliminary Results

Specific learning disorders affect a significant portion of the population. A total of 80% of its instances are dyslexia, which causes significant difficulties in learning skills related to reading, memorizing and the exposition of concepts. Whereas great efforts have been made to diagnose dyslexia and to mitigate its effects at primary and secondary school, little has been done at the university level. This has resulted in a sensibly high rate of abandonment or even of failures to enroll. The VRAIlexia project was created to face this problem by creating and popularizing an innovative method of teaching that is inclusive for dyslexic students. The core of the project is BESPECIAL, a software platform based on artificial intelligence and virtual reality that is capable of understanding the main issues experienced by dyslexic students and to provide them with ad hoc digital support methodologies in order to ease the difficulties they face in their academic studies. The aim of this paper is to present the conceptual design of BESPECIAL, highlighting the role of each module that composes it and the potential of the whole platform to fulfil the aims of VRAIlexia. Preliminary results obtained from a sample of about 700 dyslexic students are also reported, which clearly show the main issues and needs that dyslexic students experience and these will be used as guidelines for the final implementation of BESPECIAL.

Phonological Awareness as the Foundation of Reading Acquisition in Students Reading in Transparent Orthography

Phonological skills have been found to be strongly related to early reading and writing development. Accordingly, the aim of this study was to examine the extent to which the development of phonological awareness facilitates reading acquisition in students learning to read a transparent orthography. Our research included 689 primary school students in first through third grade (Mean age 101.59 months, SD = 12,690). The assessment tools used to conduct this research include the Phonological Awareness Test and the Gray Oral Reading Test. According to the results from the present study, 13.7% of students have reading difficulties. Students with reading difficulties obtained low scores in phonological awareness within each subscale compared to students who do not have reading difficulties (p < 0.01). Components of phonological awareness which did not singled out as strongly related to early reading success include Phoneme Segmentation, Initial Phoneme Identification, and Syllable Merging. Thus, understanding the nature of the relationship between phonological awareness and reading should help effective program design that will be aimed at eliminating delayed development in children's phonological awareness while they are still in preschool.

Five Describing Factors of Dyslexia

Two subtypes of dyslexia (phonological, visual) have been under debate in various studies. However, the number of symptoms of dyslexia described in the literature exceeds the number of subtypes, and underlying relations remain unclear. We investigated underlying cognitive features of dyslexia with exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. A sample of 446 students (63 with dyslexia) completed a large test battery and a large questionnaire. Five factors were found in both the test battery and the questionnaire. These 10 factors loaded on 5 latent factors (spelling, phonology, short-term memory, rhyme/confusion, and whole-word processing/complexity), which explained 60% of total variance. Three analyses supported the validity of these factors. A confirmatory factor analysis fit with a solution of five factors (RMSEA = .03). Those with dyslexia differed from those without dyslexia on all factors. A combination of five factors provided reliable predictions of dyslexia and nondyslexia (accuracy >90%). We also looked for factorial deficits on an individual level to construct subtypes of dyslexia, but found varying profiles. We concluded that a multiple cognitive deficit model of dyslexia is supported, whereas the existence of subtypes remains unclear. We discussed the results in relation to advanced compensation strategies of students, measures of intelligence, and various correlations within groups of those with and without dyslexia.

Predicting dyslexia using prereading skills: the role of sensorimotor and cognitive abilities

BACKGROUND

It is well established that phonological awareness, print knowledge and rapid naming predict later reading difficulties. However, additional auditory, visual and motor difficulties have also been observed in dyslexic children. It is examined to what extent these difficulties can be used to predict later literacy difficulties.

METHOD

An unselected sample of 267 children at school entry completed a wide battery of tasks associated with dyslexia. Their reading was tested 2, 3 and 4 years later and poor readers were identified (n = 42). Logistic regression and multiple case study approaches were used to examine the predictive validity of different tasks.

RESULTS

As expected, print knowledge, verbal short-term memory, phonological awareness and rapid naming were good predictors of later poor reading. Deficits in visual search and in auditory processing were also present in a large minority of the poor readers. Almost all poor readers showed deficits in at least one area at school entry, but there was no single deficit that characterised the majority of poor readers.

CONCLUSIONS

Results are in line with Pennington's () multiple deficits view of dyslexia. They indicate that the causes of poor reading outcome are multiple, interacting and probabilistic, rather than deterministic.