Pinyin Is an Effective Proxy for Early Screening for Mandarin-Speaking Children at Risk of Reading Disorders

Abstract

Reading disorders (RD) are common and complex neuropsychological conditions associated with decoding printed words and/or reading comprehension. Early identification of children at risk of RD is critical to allow timely interventions before mental suffering and reading impairment take place. Chinese is a unique medium for studying RD because of extra efforts required in reading acquisition of characters based on meaning rather than phonology. Pinyin, an alphabetic coding system mapping Mandarin sounds to characters, is important to develop oral language skills and a promising candidate for early screening for RD. In this pilot study, we used a cohort of 100 students (50 each in Grades 1 and 2) to derive novel profiles of applying Pinyin to identify early schoolers at risk of RD. Each student had comprehensive reading related measures in two consecutive years, including Pinyin reading and reading comprehension tested in the first and second year, respectively. We showed that Pinyin reading was mainly determined by phonological awareness, was well developed in Grade 1 and the top predictor of reading comprehension (explaining ∼30% of variance, p < 1.0e-05). Further, students who performed poorly in Pinyin reading [e.g. 1 standard deviation (SD) below the average, counting 14% in Grade 1 and 10% in Grade 2], tended to perform poorly in future reading comprehension tests, including all four individuals in Grade 1 (two out of three in Grade 2) who scored 1.5 SDs below the average. Pinyin is therefore an effective proxy for early screening for Mandarin-speaking children at risk of RD.

Human‐specific insights into candidate genes and boosted discoveries of novel loci illuminate roles of neuroglia in reading disorders

“…On the other hand, rapid advances in neuroscience have been expanding our understanding of fundamental roles of neuroglia in human brain diseases ranging from neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism to neurodegenerative problems like Parkinson's disease 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 These roles cover the entire process of human brain, from early development (e.g., neurogenesis and neuronal migration) through to maturation and function maintenance, well illustrating the early concept of neuroglia as a substance that holds nervous parts together and gives the whole its form. 49 Surprisingly, although widely considered as common and complex neuropsychological conditions, 5 , 8 RD was not yet among the reported neuropsychiatric disorders related to aberrant functions of neuroglia. 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 …”

“… 3 , 4 RD are highly inheritable but can be modified by environmental factors and their complex interactions with inherited genetic variants during early development. 5 , 6 , 7 Since reading difficulties become identifiable at school in general, 8 , 9 RD are related to age of onset, with an estimated prevalence between 5% and 12% of school‐aged children worldwide. 6 However, genetic studies of RD so far have identified only a handful of candidate genes segregated in families and 42 loci from genome‐wide association study (GWAS) that jointly provided little clues of the pathophysiology of RD.…”

Pinyin Spelling Promotes Reading Abilities of Adolescents Learning Chinese as a Foreign Language: Evidence From Mediation Models

“…Native Chinese children and nonnative Chinese learners rely on Pinyin to pronounce unfamiliar characters and establish print-sound correspondence ( Shu and Liu, 1994 ; Zhang et al, 2020 ). Studies have shown that Pinyin letter knowledge or Pinyin spelling is beneficial for Chinese character reading in native Chinese children ( Siok and Fletcher, 2001 ; Lin et al, 2010 ; Yin et al, 2011 ; Wang et al, 2014 ; Wang and McBride, 2016 ; Ding et al, 2018 ; Ma et al, 2020 ; Zhang et al, 2020 ). However, there are few studies of the role of Pinyin spelling skills in Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) or Chinese as a second language (CSL) learners’ development of Chinese reading, let alone the mechanism of influence and whether the influence is limited to primary learners.…”