This study explores whether activation and inhibition word processes contribute to the characteristic speed deficits found in transparent orthographies (Wimmer, Appl Psycholinguist 14:1-33, 1993). A second and fourth grade sample of normal school readers and dyslexic school readers participated in a lexical decision task. Words were manipulated according to two factors: word frequency (high vs. low) and syllable frequency (high vs. low). It has been repeatedly found that words with high-frequency syllables require extra time for deactivating the lexical syllabic neighbors: the so-called inhibitory effect of positional frequency syllable (Carreiras et al., J Mem Lang 32:766-780, 1993). We hypothesized that dyslexic readers would show a stronger inhibitory effect than normal readers because they are slower decoders and they may also be slower at the activation and inhibition of word representations that are competing (i.e., syllabic candidates). Results indicated an interaction between word and syllable frequency (i.e., a strong inhibitory effect was found in the low-frequency word condition). According to our hypothesis, the inhibitory effect size was almost three times bigger in dyslexics than in the normal readers. This difference shows an alteration, not a developmental lag. Interestingly, the inhibitory effect size did not interact with school grade. Thus, reading experience did not impact the lexical processes involved on the inhibitory effect. Our outcomes showed how activation and/or inhibition of lexical processes can contribute to the lack of speed beyond decoding deficit.

The Temporal Sampling Framework (TSF) theorizes that the characteristic phonological difficulties of dyslexia are caused by an atypical oscillatory sampling at one or more temporal rates. The LEEDUCA study conducted a series of Electroencephalography (EEG) experiments on children listening to amplitude modulated (AM) noise with slow-rythmic prosodic (0.5–1[Formula: see text]Hz), syllabic (4–8[Formula: see text]Hz) or the phoneme (12–40[Formula: see text]Hz) rates, aimed at detecting differences in perception of oscillatory sampling that could be associated with dyslexia. The purpose of this work is to check whether these differences exist and how they are related to children’s performance in different language and cognitive tasks commonly used to detect dyslexia. To this purpose, temporal and spectral inter-channel EEG connectivity was estimated, and a denoising autoencoder (DAE) was trained to learn a low-dimensional representation of the connectivity matrices. This representation was studied via correlation and classification analysis, which revealed ability in detecting dyslexic subjects with an accuracy higher than 0.8, and balanced accuracy around 0.7. Some features of the DAE representation were significantly correlated ([Formula: see text]) with children’s performance in language and cognitive tasks of the phonological hypothesis category such as phonological awareness and rapid symbolic naming, as well as reading efficiency and reading comprehension. Finally, a deeper analysis of the adjacency matrix revealed a reduced bilateral connection between electrodes of the temporal lobe (roughly the primary auditory cortex) in DD subjects, as well as an increased connectivity of the F7 electrode, placed roughly on Broca’s area. These results pave the way for a complementary assessment of dyslexia using more objective methodologies such as EEG.

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IntroductionThe prevalence of comorbidity between epilepsy and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in the pediatric age increased significantly in recent years. The onset of epilepsy negatively influences the abilities of the user with ASD. Thus, epilepsy will be a disabling factor that will reduce the cognitive-linguistic skills of users with ASD. The main objective of this work is to review the current scientific literature and to compare the relationship of epilepsy on the development of cognitive and linguistic skills of children with ASD.MethodsIn this regard, a systematic search was carried out in the main sources (Medline, PubMed, WOS, ResearchGate and Google Scholar). 481 articles were identified, from which, after meeting the different inclusion and exclusion criteria, a total of 18 studies of relevance to the objectives of this work were selected.ResultsThe results reflect that, at a global level, epilepsy significantly influences the performance of cognitive- linguistic skills in people with ASD.DiscussionIn conclusion, epilepsy in the ASD population leads to a reduction in cognitive and linguistic abilities, which respond to the different types of epilepsy and their location, significantly impacting the quality of life and basic activities of daily living of the user with ASD.

Resumen: En este trabajo se presenta un cuestionario de autoinforme de trastornos lectores para adultos en español (ATLAS). Se comienza por revisar las investigaciones que demuestran la utilidad y la fiabilidad de los autoinformes como instrumento para valorar las habilidades lectoescritoras de los adultos. A continuación se describe un estudio destinado a seleccionar los ítems críticos en función de su capacidad discriminativa. Este estudio permitió la elaboración de la versión final del autoinforme. Finalmente, en un segundo estudio se contrastan los datos recogidos a través del autoinforme con los obtenidos mediante pruebas psicométricas en una población universitaria. Los resultados indican que los ítems permiten (a) describir las principales dificultades de lectoescritura y (b) discriminar entre normolectores y estudiantes con dificultades. Por otra, (c) los resultados muestran que la autovaloración realizada mediante el autoinforme coincide con las medidas obtenidas mediante pruebas objetivas. Estos resultados apoyan la utilidad y fiabilidad del uso del ATLAS para detectar adultos con trastornos de lectoescritura. Presenta, además, la ventaja de ser fácil y rápido de usar. Palabras clave: Dislexia; dificultades de lectoescritura; adultos; autoinformes.Title: A self-report questionnaire on reading-writing difficulties for adults Abstract: In this paper a self-report questionnaire on reading-writing difficulties for adults in Spanish (ATLAS) is presented. Studies that use selfreport questionnaires as a tool for screening of reading-writing difficulties in adults were reviewed. Two studies were carried out to determine the validity and reliability of ATLAS. The first study was aimed to select the critical items and to assess their reliability and discriminability. In the second study the assessment reported through the answers to the questionnaire was contrasted with the results of psychometric tests. Results showed that (a) items were suitable descriptors for adult difficulties, (b) there were significant correlations between self-report scores and reading measures, and (c) the items discriminate between good and poor readers. The results of this study demonstrated that ATLAS is a sensitive tool to screen adults with reading difficulties. As a further advantage, ATLAS is an easy-to-use and time-saving instrument. Key words: Dyslexia; reading-writing difficulties; adults; self-report questionnaires. IntroducciónUn buen número de investigaciones han utilizado autoinformes para indagar acerca de la historia de aprendizaje de la lectura y las dificultades actuales de los adultos. La razón es que permiten reunir en poco tiempo información fiable sobre un número amplio de aspectos (incluso sin la presencia del examinador), cualidades de indudable valor dada la dificultad de lograr la participación de personas adultas en tareas de evaluación (Gilger, Pennington y DeFries, 1991; SchulteKörne, Deimel y Remschmidt, 1997). Este trabajo tiene como objetivo presentar y describir la elaboración de un Autoinforme de Trasto...