TY - JOUR
T1 - Perceptual expertise with Chinese characters predicts Chinese reading performance among Hong Kong Chinese children with developmental dyslexia
AU - Wong, Yetta Kwailing
AU - Tong, Christine Kong Yan
AU - Lui, Ming
AU - Wong, Alan C. N.
N1 - Funding information:
This work was supported by the Language Fund under Research and Development Projects 2018-19 of the Standing Committee on Language Education and Research (SCOLAR), Hong Kong SAR (to Y.W.), and the Direct Grant for Research at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (to Y.W.). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Wong et al.
PY - 2021/1/22
Y1 - 2021/1/22
N2 - This study explores the theoretical proposal that developmental dyslexia involves a failure to develop perceptual expertise with words despite adequate education. Among a group of Hong Kong Chinese children diagnosed with developmental dyslexia, we investigated the relationship between Chinese word reading and perceptual expertise with Chinese characters. In a perceptual fluency task, the time of visual exposure to Chinese characters was manipulated and limited such that the speed of discrimination of a short sequence of Chinese characters at an accuracy level of 80% was estimated. Pair-wise correlations showed that perceptual fluency for characters predicted speeded and non-speeded word reading performance. Exploratory hierarchical regressions showed that perceptual fluency for characters accounted for 5.3% and 9.6% variance in speeded and non-speeded reading respectively, in addition to age, non-verbal IQ, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN) and perceptual fluency for digits. The findings suggest that perceptual expertise with words plays an important role in Chinese reading performance in developmental dyslexia, and that perceptual training is a potential remediation direction.
AB - This study explores the theoretical proposal that developmental dyslexia involves a failure to develop perceptual expertise with words despite adequate education. Among a group of Hong Kong Chinese children diagnosed with developmental dyslexia, we investigated the relationship between Chinese word reading and perceptual expertise with Chinese characters. In a perceptual fluency task, the time of visual exposure to Chinese characters was manipulated and limited such that the speed of discrimination of a short sequence of Chinese characters at an accuracy level of 80% was estimated. Pair-wise correlations showed that perceptual fluency for characters predicted speeded and non-speeded word reading performance. Exploratory hierarchical regressions showed that perceptual fluency for characters accounted for 5.3% and 9.6% variance in speeded and non-speeded reading respectively, in addition to age, non-verbal IQ, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN) and perceptual fluency for digits. The findings suggest that perceptual expertise with words plays an important role in Chinese reading performance in developmental dyslexia, and that perceptual training is a potential remediation direction.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85100104058&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0243440
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0243440
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 33481782
AN - SCOPUS:85100104058
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 16
JO - PLoS ONE
JF - PLoS ONE
IS - 1
M1 - e0243440
ER -
