The nature of the phonological processing in French dyslexic children: evidence for the phonological syllable and linguistic features' role in silent reading and speech discrimination

Abstract

This study investigated the status of phonological representations in French dyslexic children (DY) compared with reading level- (RL) and chronological age-matched (CA) controls. We focused on the syllable's role and on the impact of French linguistic features. In Experiment 1, we assessed oral discrimination abilities of pairs of syllables that varied as a function of voicing, mode or place of articulation, or syllable structure. Results suggest that DY children underperform controls with a 'speed-accuracy' deficit. However, DY children exhibit some similar processing than those highlighted in controls. As in CA and RL controls, DY children have difficulties in processing two sounds that only differ in voicing, and preferentially process obstruent rather than fricative sounds, and more efficiently process CV than CCV syllables. In Experiment 2, we used a modified version of the Colé, Magnan, and Grainger's (Applied Psycholinguistics 20:507-532, 1999) paradigm. Results show that DY children underperform CA controls but outperform RL controls. However, as in CA and RL controls, data reveal that DY children are able to use phonological procedures influenced by initial syllable frequency. Thus, DY children process syllabically high-frequency syllables but phonemically process low-frequency syllables. They also exhibit lexical and syllable frequency effects. Consequently, results provide evidence that DY children performances can be accounted for by laborious phonological syllable-based procedures and also degraded phonological representations.

Spelling Errors in French‐speaking Children with Dyslexia: Phonology May Not Provide the Best Evidence

“…In contrast to spelling research, there is a considerable body of studies that have investigated reading in students with dyslexia (e.g. Bosse & Valdois, ; Casalis, ; Colé & Sprenger‐Charolles, ; de Jong & van der Leij, ; Demont, ; Goswami, ; Griffiths & Snowling, ; Larkin & Snowling, ; Maïonchi‐Pino, Magnan, & Ecalle, ; Manis, Custodio, & Szeszulski, ; Marinus & de Jong, ; Snowling, Goulandris, & Defty, ; Sprenger‐Charolles & Serniclaes, ; Sprenger‐Charolles et al, ; Ziegler & Goswami, ).…”

Do Consonant Sonority and Status Influence Syllable-Based Segmentation Strategies in a Visual Letter Detection Task? Developmental Evidence in French Children

“…Many studies have demonstrated that beginning readers rely on the phonological, orthographic, and statistical properties of syllables to process printed words (e.g., Chetail & Mathey, 2009;Colé, Magnan, & Grainger, 1999;Maïonchi-Pino et al, 2010a, 2010b. However, the acoustic-phonetic properties of phonemes within syllabic boundaries have received little attention.…”

Procédures graphophonémiques et graphosyllabiques chez des lecteurs dyslexiques et des lecteurs sourds du primaire: l'effet de la tâche

“…De manière générale, nos résultats vont dans le sens desétudes où lesélèves en difficulté ontété comparésà deś elèves du mêmeâge (par ex. : Colin et al, 2007;Griffiths & Snowling, 2001;Maïonchi-Pino et al, 2010). En effet, lesélèves dyslexiques et lesélèves sourds ont des performances plus faibles que leurs pairs du mêmeâge, soit en termes de réussite, de temps de réponse ou les deuxà la fois.…”

“…D'autres chercheurs se sont intéressés aux unités phonologiques plus grandes que le phonème, la syllabe par exemple. Une seconde série d'études plaident en faveur de la syllabe comme unité de lecture et ont montré que les procédures graphosyllabiques sont liées, dans certaineś etudes, aux habiletés en lecture (Colé, Magnan, & Grainger, 1999;Doignon & Zagar, 2006;Duncan & Seymour, 2003;Ferrand, Segui, & Grainger, 1996;Maïonchi-Pino, Magnan, &Écalle, 2010;Prinzmetal, Hoffman, & Vest, 1991;Prinzmetal, Treiman, & Rho, 1986;Sprenger-Charolles & Siegel, 1997;Taft & Radeau, 1995). Ayant eu recoursà divers protocoles méthodologiques, cesétudes ont montré, entre autres, qu'il est plus facile de lire un mot formé de moins de syllabes qu'un mot de plus de syllabes, le nombre de lettreś etantégal, ou qu'il est plus facile d'identifier la couleur d'une lettre lorsque la lettre est de la même couleur que les autres lettres de la syllabe.…”