Understanding the Microstructure and Macrostructure of Passages Among Chinese Elementary School Children.

Understanding the microstructure and macrostructure of passages is important for reading comprehension. What cognitive-linguistic skills may contribute to understanding these two levels of structures has rarely been investigated. The present study examined whether some word-level and text-level cognitive-linguistic skills may contribute differently to the understanding of microstructure and macrostructure respectively.

What are the early indicators of persistent word reading difficulties among Chinese readers in elementary grades?

To identify the indicators of persistent reading difficulties among Chinese readers in early elementary grades, the performance of three groups of Chinese children with different reading trajectories ('persistent poor word readers', 'improved poor word readers' and 'skilled word readers') in reading-related measures was analysed in a 3-year longitudinal study. The three groups were classified according to their performance in a standardized Chinese word reading test in Grade 1 and Grade 4. Results of analysis of variance and logistic regression on the reading-related measures revealed that rapid naming and syntactic skills were important indicators of early word reading difficulty.

Modeling the relationships between cognitive-linguistic skills and writing in Chinese among elementary grades students.

The present study is a four-year longitudinal study examining the important predictors of writing of 340 Chinese children in elementary grades. Children's transcription skills (handwriting skills and spelling), and syntactic skills in grade 1 were significant predictors of text writing in grade 1-4 while ideation in grade 1 only contributed to text writing in grade 2. Stroke order knowledge was shown as an important handwriting skill in Chinese reflecting the characteristics of the Chinese orthography.

Contribution of discourse and morphosyntax skills to reading comprehension in Chinese dyslexic and typically developing children.

This study aimed at identifying important skills for reading comprehension in Chinese dyslexic children and their typically developing counterparts matched on age (CA controls) or reading level (RL controls). The children were assessed on Chinese reading comprehension, cognitive, and reading-related skills. Results showed that the dyslexic children performed significantly less well than the CA controls but similarly to RL controls in most measures.

Cognitive profiling and preliminary subtyping in Chinese developmental dyslexia.

The present study examined the cognitive profile and subtypes of developmental dyslexia in a nonalphabetic script, Chinese. One hundred and forty-seven Chinese primary school children with developmental dyslexia were tested on a number of literacy and cognitive tasks. The results showed that rapid naming deficit and orthographic deficit were the two most dominant types of cognitive deficits in Chinese developmental dyslexia, and that rapid naming and orthographic processing had significant unique contributions to literacy performance.

The cognitive profile and multiple-deficit hypothesis in Chinese developmental dyslexia.

The present study was conducted to examine the cognitive profile and multiple-deficit hypothesis in Chinese developmental dyslexia. Thirty Chinese dyslexic children in Hong Kong were compared with 30 average readers of the same chronological age (CA controls) and 30 average readers of the same reading level (RL controls) in a number of rapid naming, visual, phonological, and orthographic tasks. Chinese dyslexic children performed significantly worse than the CA controls but similarly to the RL controls on most of the cognitive tasks.