Word recognition and cognitive profiles of Chinese pre-school children at-risk for dyslexia through language delay or familial history of dyslexia.

The focus of this research study was on identifying the cognitive abilities that can distinguish children who are at risk for dyslexia (either because they have a familial history of dyslexia or because they are language delayed) from the children without such risk. Three groups of 5-year-old children participated in this study, with the first group identified as having familial risk because their older sibling had been diagnosed as dyslexic. The second group was the language delayed group, with children being identified by pediatricians as manifesting clinical at-risk factors in language. The third group was the control group extracted from our own on-going longitudinal study on language development. All participants were Hong Kong Chinese children.Tasks used in the test included Chinese character recognition, phonological awareness (tone detection and syllable deletion), speeded naming, morphological awareness and visual-spatial processing, with all tasks having been related to dyslexia in some previous studies. Results indicated that the language delayed group performed worse than the control group in all cognitive tasks, while the familial at-risk groups performed worse than the control only in Chinese character recognition, tone detection and morphological awareness. The results confirm previous findings that children who are at risk of dyslexia (as compared to those who are language impaired) show deficits in only some of the cognitive abilities. Early identification of dyslexia should therefore focus on related cognitive abilities, particularly morphological awareness.

McBride-Chang, C., Lam, F., Lam, C., Doo, S., Wong, S. W. L., & Chow, Y. Y. Y. (2008). Word recognition and cognitive profiles of Chinese pre-school children at-risk for dyslexia through language delay or familial history of dyslexia. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 49, 211-218.