Naslov
Phonotactic properties of words and their impact on reading: comparison of children with dyslexia and typically developing children

Autori
Zelenika Zeba, Mirta ; Matić, Ana ; Palmović, Marijan ; Kovačević, Melita

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, sažetak, znanstveni

Izvornik
Linguistics Prague 2018 / - , 2018, 2-2

Skup
Linguistics Prague 2018

Mjesto i datum
Prag, Češka Republika, 26.04.2018. - 28.04.2018

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Poster

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
Dyslexia ; Phonotactic probability ; Reading ; Eye tracking

Sažetak
This study takes a different approach to dyslexia, rather than the most frequent ones concerned with its underlying biological or psychological aspects. It follows the line of research oriented towards the mechanisms of implicit learning, combining it with linguistic features. The underlying assumption is that phonotactic information are covertly learned and that they facilitate word recognition, which seems not to be the case for individuals with dyslexia (i.e., an ERP study using pseudowords ; Zelenika Zeba, 2016). Previous studies on dyslexia in the Croatian language mostly aimed at classifying the deficit with regards to the specific orthographic system, i.e. transparent orthography and small granularity (Zaretsky et al., 2009), but nevertheless, there is still a considerable lack of studies on the topic in languages other than English, German or French. Therefore, the current study broadens previous research. Two groups of four-grade children, dyslexic (N=10 ; Mage=9, 8) and typically developing (N=14 ; Mage=9, 6), read four short texts which were displayed on the screen. For this purpose, an SMI Hi-Speed 500 eye tracker was used and children’s eye movements were recorded. Texts were matched in length and number of words, and each of them contained target words (treated as Areas of Interest), controlled for frequency and phonotactic probability (high and low). Dwell time, first fixation durations and revisits on the targets were treated as dependant variables and analysed in order to test the role of phonotactics in dyslexic and typically developing children. The preliminary results show that children with dyslexia spend significantly more time fixating the target words than the control group, which reflects their higher processing cost. More importantly, a main effect of phonotactics and frequency is observed ; children with dyslexia show inferior performance when compared to unimpaired readers, especially in conditions which contain less frequent and phonotactically less probable words. These findings are relevant since they contribute to an array of research in typologically different languages, and indirectly highlight the importance of a more comprehensive approach to dyslexia which takes into account also the linguistic features.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Logopedija

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