The subtypes of developmental dyslexia in Chinese: evidence from three cases

Abstract

This study investigated subtypes of developmental dyslexia in Chinese by assessing three cases of Chinese dyslexic children. A battery of screening measures, a character naming and meaning task, and metalinguistic awareness tasks were administered to each child. One of the three children demonstrated characteristics of developmental surface dyslexia, and the other two showed characteristics of developmental deep dyslexia. Moreover, the children's reading problems were found to be specifically related to their deficits in metalinguistic awareness. The dissociation between developmental surface and deep dyslexia provides support to Weekes et al.'s (Neurocase 1997; 3: 51-60) model that a semantic and a nonsemantic pathway exist independently in Chinese reading. The results also suggest that deficits in morphological and phonological awareness may cause developmental delays in the semantic and the nonsemantic pathway.

Developmental dyslexia: an update

“…However, both of these hemispheres are not functionally equal and that may explain the differences between people with dyslexia (Lavidor et al 2006). In addition, differences in the locus of cerebellar impairment may be responsible for subtypes of dyslexia, such as developmental surface and developmental deep dyslexia (Shu et al 2005;Nocolson and Fawcett 2005).…”

Cultural and linguistic influence on brain organization for language and possible consequences for dyslexia: A review

“…Specific problems in subgroups of dyslexic children need to be identified (Shu et al, 2005). Knowledge in more than the native language has long been a necessity in many parts of the world, and is of increasing importance today.…”

“…The data are consistent with the idea that cognitive strategies for reading development tune the cortex . A recent detailed study on the different reading problems in three dyslexic Chinese children indicates that the prevalence of subgroups of dyslexia in Chinese children needs to be further studied (Shu et al, 2005).…”

Typical and Dyslexic Development in Learning to Read Chinese

“…Impairment to the lexical semantic pathway will result in acquired surface dyslexia, while impairment to the nonsemantic pathway results in deep dyslexia. In a case study, Shu, Meng, Chen, Luan, and Cao, (2005) reported two types of dyslexic children, surface and deep, who showed the impairment in different pathways. Two dyslexic children, Child-L and Child-J, were tested by a word recognition task, in which they were asked to name a character and then to compose a compound word based on the target character.…”