The adaptation of an adult group screening test for dyslexia into Finland-Swedish: normative data for university students and the effects of language background on test performance

Normative Data Estimation in Neuropsychological Tests: A Systematic Review

OBJECTIVE

To quantify the evolution, impact, and importance of normative data (ND) calculation by identifying trends in the research literature and what approaches need improvement.

METHODS

A PRISMA-guideline systematic review was performed on literature from 2000 to 2022 in PubMed, Pub-Psych, and Web of Science. Inclusion criteria included scientific articles about ND in neuropsychological tests with clear data analysis, published in any country, and written in English or Spanish. Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies were included. Bibliometric analysis was used to examine the growth, productivity, journal dispersion, and impact of the topic. VOSViewer compared keyword co-occurrence networks between 1952-1999 and 2000-2022.

RESULTS

Four hundred twelve articles met inclusion and exclusion criteria. The most studied predictors were age, education, and sex. There were a greater number of studies/projects focusing on adults than children. The Verbal Fluency Test (12.7%) was the most studied test, and the most frequently used variable selection strategy was linear regression (49.5%). Regression-based approaches were widely used, whereas the traditional approach was still used. ND were presented mostly in percentiles (44.2%). Bibliometrics showed exponential growth in publications. Three journals (2.41%) were in the Core Zone. VOSViewer results showed small nodes, long distances, and four ND-related topics from 1952 to 1999, and there were larger nodes with short connections from 2000 to 2022, indicating topic spread.

CONCLUSIONS

Future studies should be conducted on children's ND, and alternative statistical methods should be used over the widely used regression approaches to address limitations and support growth of the field.

Dynamic tests as a language-free method for assessing reading in a multilingual setting

It is difficult to assess reading ability or diagnose dyslexia in Malaysia due to its complex linguistic background of simultaneous multilingualism and multiliteracy. Low scores on traditional reading tests could be explained by language and contextual factors rather than indicating reading difficulty. One method shown to be less sensitive to specific language factors is the Dynamic Testing paradigm (Elbro et al., 2012). Fifty-nine Malaysian adult readers of English and Bahasa Melayu and/or Chinese were recruited and their performances on the dynamic test assessed. Scores on the Dynamic Test significantly predicted potential reading difficulty as measured by the Adult Reading History Questionnaire (Lefly & Pennington, 2000) but not reading proficiency measured by a Lexical Decision Task (LDT). Participants were then grouped by language of first literacy: alphabetic (English and Bahasa Melayu) or morphosyllabic (Chinese). No significant differences were found between those reading morphosyllabic versus alphabetic orthographies for the Dynamic Test. The Dynamic Test was a significant predictor of potential reading difficulty in the alphabetic group only. Thus, it was concluded that the dynamic format could be a suitable assessment tool for multilinguals, but that further research is required to determine its utility, especially in non-alphabetic languages.

The Effect of Illustration on Improving Text Comprehension in Dyslexic Adults

This study analyses the effect of pictures in reading materials on the viewing patterns of dyslexic adults. By analysing viewing patterns using eye-tracking, we captured differences in eye movements between young adults with dyslexia and controls based on the influence of reading skill as a continuous variable of the total sample. Both types of participants were assigned randomly to view either text-only or a text + picture stimuli. The results show that the controls made an early global overview of the material and (when a picture was present) rapid transitions between text and picture. Having text illustrated with a picture decreased scores on questions about the learning material among participants with dyslexia. Controls spent 1.7% and dyslexic participants 1% of their time on the picture. Controls had 24% fewer total fixations; however, 29% more of the control group's fixations than the dyslexic group's fixations were on the picture. We also looked for effects of different types of pictures. Dyslexic subjects exhibited a comparable viewing pattern to controls when scenes were complex, but fewer fixations when scenes were neutral/simple. Individual scan paths are presented as examples of atypical viewing patterns for individuals with dyslexia as compared with controls. © 2016 The Authors. Dyslexia published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Instrumentos de avaliação de leitura em adultos: um estudo psicométrico

RESUMO Objetivo: investigar as propriedades psicométricas de um teste de desempenho para avaliação de reconhecimento de palavras e de um checklist de autorrelato de dificuldades de leitura/indicadores de dislexia, em uma amostra de adultos. Métodos: foram avaliados 54 sujeitos, idades entre 18 e 57 anos (M=24,16; DP = 7,34), com Ensino Médio completo ou cursando a graduação. As avaliações foram realizadas utilizando o Teste Computadorizado de Competência de Leitura de Palavras para Adultos (TCLP-2) e o questionário de autorrelato Adult Dyslexia Checklist (ADC). Resultados: não foram observadas diferenças de desempenho em função da escolaridade e do gênero. O tempo de resposta foi menor no julgamento dos itens Corretos do TCLP-2 em relação aos itens incorretos (inversão, troca fonológica, erro ortográfico e pseudopalavra homófona). 18,5% dos participantes relataram dificuldades mais severas no ADC. Análise de grupos extremos mostrou que participantes com maiores pontuações/dificuldades no ADC tiveram pior desempenho nos itens Corretos do TCLP-2. Análise fatorial retornou solução com fator único para tipos de itens do TCLP-2. Dados de precisão se mostraram adequados para ambos os instrumentos, com valores de Spearman-Brown e alfa de Cronbach maiores que 0,70. Relações de baixa a moderadas foram observadas entre os dois instrumentos, provendo evidências de validade a ambos. Conclusão: o estudo apresentou dados psicométricos de dois instrumentos para avaliação de leitura em adultos. Ambos mostraram índices satisfatórios de precisão e evidências de validade por relação com outras variáveis. Frente à carência de instrumentos padronizados para avaliação de leitura em adultos no contexto nacional, o estudo estende sua contribuição à futura instrumentalização desta área.

Dyslexia in a second language?-a dynamic test of reading acquisition may provide a fair answer

Dyslexia is hard to diagnose in a second language. Poor performance on a test of reading may be caused by poor language proficiency in the second language or by limited schooling rather than by poor reading ability per se. This confound was supported in a study of 88 adult second language learners and 65 native language speakers. The incidence of dyslexia in the second language learners varied widely depending on the measure of reading. In order to reduce language and schooling confounds, a dynamic test of acquisition of basic decoding ability was developed. In the dynamic test, participants are taught three novel letters and to synthesise the letter sounds into new words. Results from the study indicated that the dynamic test provided results in accordance with the current IDA definition of dyslexia, while significantly reducing the influence second language vocabulary and amount of schooling. With the dynamic measure, the same cut-off point between dyslexic and non-dyslexic performance appeared valid in both native language speakers and second language learners.

Validity of a protocol for adult self-report of dyslexia and related difficulties

BACKGROUND

There is an increased prevalence of reading and related difficulties in children of dyslexic parents. In order to understand the causes of these difficulties, it is important to quantify the risk factors passed from parents to their offspring.

METHOD

417 adults completed a protocol comprising a 15-item questionnaire rating reading and related skills and a scale assessing ADHD symptoms; 344 completed reading, nonword reading and spelling tests.

RESULTS

A confirmatory factor analysis with four factors (Reading, Word Finding, Attention and Hyperactivity) provided a reasonable fit to the data. The Reading Factor showed robust correlations with measured literacy skills. Adults who reported as dyslexic, or rated their reading difficulties as more severe, gained lower scores on objective measures of literacy skills. Although the sensitivity of the new scale was acceptable, it tended to miss some cases of low literacy.

CONCLUSIONS

Self-report scales of reading and of attention difficulties are useful for identifying adults with reading and attention difficulties which may confer risks on their children of related problems. It is important for research following children at family risk of dyslexia to be aware of these effects.

Multilingual dyslexia in university students: Reading and writing patterns in three languages

We investigated reading and writing in two domestic languages (Swedish and Finnish) and one foreign language (English) among multilingual university students with (n = 20) versus without dyslexia (n = 20). Our analyses encompassed overall speed and accuracy measures and an in-depth analysis of grapheme-phoneme-grapheme errors and inflectional errors. Dyslexic impairments were most conspicuous in word and sentence segmentation, accuracy in oral text reading, single word writing to dictation and free writing across the three languages, most prominently in English. The writing tasks exhibited significantly higher proportions of phoneme-to-grapheme errors in the dyslexia group, especially in English, and marginal differences in inflectional errors, again discernible in English. The results indicate that language proficiency and orthographic depth modulate the appearance of high-performing multilinguals' dyslexic problems in reading and writing. These problems surfaced most clearly in a less proficient foreign, orthographically opaque language.

Cognitive-linguistic performances of multilingual university students suspected of dyslexia

High-performing adults with compensated dyslexia pose particular challenges to dyslexia diagnostics. We compared the performance of 20 multilingual Finnish university students with suspected dyslexia with 20 age-matched and education-matched controls on an extensive test battery. The battery tapped various aspects of reading, writing, word retrieval, phonological processing and other cognitive functions relevant for dyslexia. Reading and writing were examined in the two domestic languages, Swedish and Finnish. The most prominent group differences in reading and writing emerged on accuracy measures in both languages (reading text aloud, proofreading, writing to dictation, free writing). The dyslexia group also performed less well on speeded segmentation of written input, complex speeded naming and complex phoneme manipulation. The pattern of results fits the phonological deficit hypothesis of dyslexia and indicates the presence of pervasive underlying defects in compensated dyslexia.