Chinese dyslexia

Title Understanding Chinese Developmental Dyslexia: Morphological Awareness as a Core Cognitive Construct

Author Shu, Hua1; McBride-Chang, Catherine2; Wu, Sina3, 4; Liu, Hongyun3

Affiliation (1)State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neurosciences and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China; (2)Department of Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China; (3)School of Psychology, Beijing Normal University; (4)Beijing Foreign Studies University

Source Journal of Educational Psychology. Vol 98 (1), February 2006, pp. 122-133

ISSN 0022-0663

Abstract Tasks representing 9 cognitive constructs of potential importance to understanding Chinese reading development and impairment were administered to 75 children with dyslexia and 77 age-matched children without reading difficulties in 5th and 6th grade. Logistic regression analyses revealed that dyslexic readers were best distinguished from age-matched controls with tasks of morphological awareness, speeded number naming, and vocabulary skill; performance on tasks of visual skills or phonological awareness failed to distinguish the groups. Path analyses further revealed that a construct of morphological awareness was the strongest consistent predictor of a variety of literacy-related skills across both groups. Findings suggest that morphological awareness may be a core theoretical construct necessary for explaining variability in reading Chinese.