Volume 13, Issue 6 (2023)
LRR 2023, 13(6): 1-38 |
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ahadi H. Linguistic and Metalinguistic Characteristics of Persian-Speaking Children with Dyslexia. LRR 2023; 13 (6) :1-38
URL: http://lrr.modares.ac.ir/article-14-49599-en.html
URL: http://lrr.modares.ac.ir/article-14-49599-en.html
Assistant Professor of Linguistics, Department of Linguistics, Institute for Humanities and cultural studies, Tehran, Iran , h.ahadi@ihcs.ac.ir
Abstract: (2941 Views)
The study of language development and metalinguistic awareness of children is one of the main topics in learning disorders. Some believe that linguistic ability and metalinguistic awareness play an important role in the ability of children with dyslexia to read; Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the linguistic and meta linguistic skills of children with dyslexia and normal children.
For this study, 16 dyslexic students and 32 children of the same age were selected and after performing linguistic and metalinguistic development tests, the results were analyzed by SPSS software.
According to the results of the present study, there is a significant difference between the normal and dyslexic groups in most subtests of language development and phonological awareness tests. Unlike grammatical judgment and lexical awareness subtests, the difference between the two groups is quite significant in the verb tense subtest. In both groups, there is a correlation between some subtests of meta linguistic with some subtests of language development.
Therefore, these findings confirm the hypothesis of interaction between metalinguistic and linguistic development and show that dyslexic children, unlike lexical awareness tasks, have problems in most linguistic and metalinguistic, so it is necessary these skills will be Strengthen.
Language as the distinguishing feature of mankind from other beings is one of the issues that has been constantly considered by scientists in various sciences. The study of language development and child metalinguistic awareness is one of the main topics in linguistics and psycholinguistics. Metalinguistic awareness is the ability to focus and think on the features of language that are often measured using phonological, lexical, and syntactic awareness tasks (Bialystok & Herman, 1999).
Metalinguistic awareness is the ability to think about the nature and patterns of language. The extent to which children are aware of these rules is called "Metalinguistic awareness." The results of several studies by researchers clearly show that the majority of preschool children are able to make at least some cases of Metalinguistic judgment, and that Metalinguistic performance improves as children grow older. In addition, this ability is completely related to other aspects of language development. Numerous studies (Bialystok, 1991: 2001) have shown that language and Metalinguistic skills play an important role in the ability of these children to read and write, and recognizing their strengths and weaknesses to solve the problems of reading and writing of these children and also is very useful in their curriculum design.
Phonological awareness refers to a person's knowledge of the building blocks of language, which is the basis for learning to read in languages with an alphabetic system. Phonological awareness is a subset of Metalinguistic knowledge. In fact, in order to achieve phonological awareness, the child needs to have a correct understanding and representation of spoken sounds, and this correct representation depends on the child's awareness of the specific coordinates of sounds and the rules governing their order. The ability to correctly understand and represent spoken sounds is called phonological ability, which is the basis of a child's phonological awareness and phonological skills. This ability enables the child to pay attention to language units. Phonological awareness skills develop based on two overlapping general patterns (Chen et al., 2004).
Word definition is a tool for predicting lexical knowledge (Marinellie, 2004: 241). Defining a word requires lexical knowledge and the use of semantic features, cognitive awareness, and Metalinguistic ability (Gutierrez-Cleflen & DeCurtis, 1999: 23). The skill of defining a word is actually related to the abstract relationships between concepts. The definition of a word is part of the cognitive domain of language and the same phrase that is used to describe the meaning of a word (Loria, 1998: 99).
2. Literature Review
In some studies, the phonological skills of children with dyslexia have been investigated. For example, Ashtari and Shirazi (2004) by examining and comparing phonological processing in children with dyslexia showed that there is a significant difference between the two groups and children with dyslexia group is weaker than the normal group in both tests. Shirazi (2012) also by examining the status of phonological processing, central auditory processing and working memory and their contribution to the reading problems of Persian dyslexic students showed that most dyslexics show different combinations of phonological processing, central auditory processing and working memory problems that It can indicate the non-homogeneous nature of dyslexia, but in all these combinations, there is a phonological processing problem, which confirms the central phonological deficit in dyslexia. Mardani et al. (2012) showed that there was a significant difference in the average rhyme detection between the two groups.
Ahadi et al. (2020) also investigated the phonological awareness skills of dyslexic children, and examined their reading of different words and showed a significant difference in reading skills and phonological awareness between children with dyslexia and the normal group of the same age. Ahadi et al. (2019) investigated the relationship between phonological awareness and reading in Persian-speaking children with autism.
Regarding the syntactic awareness of dyslexic children, Casalis et al. (2003) by examining monosyllabic awareness, which is a subset of syntactic awareness in developmental dyslexia, showed that in all tasks, the performance of the dyslexic group was weaker than the age-matched group. The number of syntactic studies in Persian-speaking dyslexic children is small. In this field, only two studies were found, one of which was about syntactic awareness by Nabifar et al. (2014) and the other one was conducted by Ahadi (1400) about examining the relationship between the ability Reading the word and understanding the syntax is the understanding of the text. Nabifar et al investigated and compared syntactic awareness in natural Persian and dyslexic children and found that there is a significant difference between the overall scores of this test in the two groups.
Ahadi (1400) investigated the relationship between word reading skills and syntactic comprehension with text comprehension in dyslexic and natural Persian-speaking children and showed that in both groups, the highest average error is related to reading nonwords and the lowest error rate is related to regular words. In the normal group, there is a negative correlation between reading speed and accuracy with the percentage of errors in reading regular, irregular and non-words, although there is a correlation between the percentage of errors in reading irregular words and reading speed, as well as the correlation between the percentage of errors in reading Vocabulary and reading accuracy are significant. In the dyslexic group, there is a negative and significant correlation between overall reading speed and accuracy and error percentage in reading regular and irregular words, but there is no significant correlation between overall reading accuracy and error percentage in non-word reading; Therefore, the ability to read words in a general form (whole word reading) plays a significant role in the speed and accuracy of reading. However, no significant correlation was found between the syntactic understanding of the studied structures and the understanding of the target text.
Several studies have been conducted on the language skills of children with dyslexia, for example, Man et al. (Mann et al., 1984) showed that children who have difficulty in understanding and repeating complex sentences, use less complex syntactic structures and make syntactic errors. They have more in their speech. Byrne (1996) also showed that dyslexic children have more problems in understanding and repeating related clauses. These studies indicate that dyslexic children have more errors in interpreting unknown sentences than the control group. Respens (2004) also investigated 8-year-old Dutch dyslexic children and found that these children were weaker in identifying subject-verb matching mistakes than children of the same age. In a subsequent study that used similar cases, he observed that dyslexics were weaker than controls in deciding the agreement between subject and verb, so syntactic defects were more common in dyslexics than in normal children. Robertson and Joanisse (2010) also compared the comprehension of spoken sentences in dyslexic children and children with language delay with their age peers. They used a picture-sentence matching task and sentences of two different lengths and two syntactic levels were grammatically The results of their research showed that sentence comprehension decreases with increasing working memory load and this decrease in the dyslexic group.
3. Methodology
In this study, the samples were selected from Persian-speaking children with dyslexia in the second grade of Tehran. Sixteen monolingual Persian children with dyslexia in Tehran, who were studying in the second grade of elementary school and were referred to learning disorders centers due to reading and writing problems, were selected as the experimental group. The reason for choosing the second grade is the completion of alphabet training and the beginning of whole word reading in this grade, in addition, most of the cases diagnosed and referred to learning disorder centers are second grade students. 32 students of the second grade of normal schools in Tehran were also selected as an available sample and examined as a control group (age-matched). Due to the small number of children referred to dyslexia centers and the withdrawal of some of them during the treatment period, sixteen dyslexic students and 32 normal students were selected and examined for comparison. To conduct this study, reading and comprehension tests were used. The average chronological age of the dyslexic group is 31.95 months and their average intelligence is 84.93, which according to the psychologist of the learning disorder center, all of them had normal intelligence.
4. Results
According to the results of the present study, there is a significant difference between the normal and dyslexic groups in all subtests of language development except the subtest of relational vocabulary. There is a significant difference between the two groups in most subtests of phonological awareness. Unlike grammatical judgment and lexical awareness subtests, the difference between the two groups is quite significant in the verb tense subtest. In both groups, there is a correlation between some subtests of meta linguistic with some subtests of language development, but other than the correlation between the subtests of lexical awareness and the oral vocabulary subtest of language development test, in children with dyslexia, there is not meaningful correlation in other subtests.
For this study, 16 dyslexic students and 32 children of the same age were selected and after performing linguistic and metalinguistic development tests, the results were analyzed by SPSS software.
According to the results of the present study, there is a significant difference between the normal and dyslexic groups in most subtests of language development and phonological awareness tests. Unlike grammatical judgment and lexical awareness subtests, the difference between the two groups is quite significant in the verb tense subtest. In both groups, there is a correlation between some subtests of meta linguistic with some subtests of language development.
Therefore, these findings confirm the hypothesis of interaction between metalinguistic and linguistic development and show that dyslexic children, unlike lexical awareness tasks, have problems in most linguistic and metalinguistic, so it is necessary these skills will be Strengthen.
- Introduction
Language as the distinguishing feature of mankind from other beings is one of the issues that has been constantly considered by scientists in various sciences. The study of language development and child metalinguistic awareness is one of the main topics in linguistics and psycholinguistics. Metalinguistic awareness is the ability to focus and think on the features of language that are often measured using phonological, lexical, and syntactic awareness tasks (Bialystok & Herman, 1999).
Metalinguistic awareness is the ability to think about the nature and patterns of language. The extent to which children are aware of these rules is called "Metalinguistic awareness." The results of several studies by researchers clearly show that the majority of preschool children are able to make at least some cases of Metalinguistic judgment, and that Metalinguistic performance improves as children grow older. In addition, this ability is completely related to other aspects of language development. Numerous studies (Bialystok, 1991: 2001) have shown that language and Metalinguistic skills play an important role in the ability of these children to read and write, and recognizing their strengths and weaknesses to solve the problems of reading and writing of these children and also is very useful in their curriculum design.
Phonological awareness refers to a person's knowledge of the building blocks of language, which is the basis for learning to read in languages with an alphabetic system. Phonological awareness is a subset of Metalinguistic knowledge. In fact, in order to achieve phonological awareness, the child needs to have a correct understanding and representation of spoken sounds, and this correct representation depends on the child's awareness of the specific coordinates of sounds and the rules governing their order. The ability to correctly understand and represent spoken sounds is called phonological ability, which is the basis of a child's phonological awareness and phonological skills. This ability enables the child to pay attention to language units. Phonological awareness skills develop based on two overlapping general patterns (Chen et al., 2004).
Word definition is a tool for predicting lexical knowledge (Marinellie, 2004: 241). Defining a word requires lexical knowledge and the use of semantic features, cognitive awareness, and Metalinguistic ability (Gutierrez-Cleflen & DeCurtis, 1999: 23). The skill of defining a word is actually related to the abstract relationships between concepts. The definition of a word is part of the cognitive domain of language and the same phrase that is used to describe the meaning of a word (Loria, 1998: 99).
2. Literature Review
In some studies, the phonological skills of children with dyslexia have been investigated. For example, Ashtari and Shirazi (2004) by examining and comparing phonological processing in children with dyslexia showed that there is a significant difference between the two groups and children with dyslexia group is weaker than the normal group in both tests. Shirazi (2012) also by examining the status of phonological processing, central auditory processing and working memory and their contribution to the reading problems of Persian dyslexic students showed that most dyslexics show different combinations of phonological processing, central auditory processing and working memory problems that It can indicate the non-homogeneous nature of dyslexia, but in all these combinations, there is a phonological processing problem, which confirms the central phonological deficit in dyslexia. Mardani et al. (2012) showed that there was a significant difference in the average rhyme detection between the two groups.
Ahadi et al. (2020) also investigated the phonological awareness skills of dyslexic children, and examined their reading of different words and showed a significant difference in reading skills and phonological awareness between children with dyslexia and the normal group of the same age. Ahadi et al. (2019) investigated the relationship between phonological awareness and reading in Persian-speaking children with autism.
Regarding the syntactic awareness of dyslexic children, Casalis et al. (2003) by examining monosyllabic awareness, which is a subset of syntactic awareness in developmental dyslexia, showed that in all tasks, the performance of the dyslexic group was weaker than the age-matched group. The number of syntactic studies in Persian-speaking dyslexic children is small. In this field, only two studies were found, one of which was about syntactic awareness by Nabifar et al. (2014) and the other one was conducted by Ahadi (1400) about examining the relationship between the ability Reading the word and understanding the syntax is the understanding of the text. Nabifar et al investigated and compared syntactic awareness in natural Persian and dyslexic children and found that there is a significant difference between the overall scores of this test in the two groups.
Ahadi (1400) investigated the relationship between word reading skills and syntactic comprehension with text comprehension in dyslexic and natural Persian-speaking children and showed that in both groups, the highest average error is related to reading nonwords and the lowest error rate is related to regular words. In the normal group, there is a negative correlation between reading speed and accuracy with the percentage of errors in reading regular, irregular and non-words, although there is a correlation between the percentage of errors in reading irregular words and reading speed, as well as the correlation between the percentage of errors in reading Vocabulary and reading accuracy are significant. In the dyslexic group, there is a negative and significant correlation between overall reading speed and accuracy and error percentage in reading regular and irregular words, but there is no significant correlation between overall reading accuracy and error percentage in non-word reading; Therefore, the ability to read words in a general form (whole word reading) plays a significant role in the speed and accuracy of reading. However, no significant correlation was found between the syntactic understanding of the studied structures and the understanding of the target text.
Several studies have been conducted on the language skills of children with dyslexia, for example, Man et al. (Mann et al., 1984) showed that children who have difficulty in understanding and repeating complex sentences, use less complex syntactic structures and make syntactic errors. They have more in their speech. Byrne (1996) also showed that dyslexic children have more problems in understanding and repeating related clauses. These studies indicate that dyslexic children have more errors in interpreting unknown sentences than the control group. Respens (2004) also investigated 8-year-old Dutch dyslexic children and found that these children were weaker in identifying subject-verb matching mistakes than children of the same age. In a subsequent study that used similar cases, he observed that dyslexics were weaker than controls in deciding the agreement between subject and verb, so syntactic defects were more common in dyslexics than in normal children. Robertson and Joanisse (2010) also compared the comprehension of spoken sentences in dyslexic children and children with language delay with their age peers. They used a picture-sentence matching task and sentences of two different lengths and two syntactic levels were grammatically The results of their research showed that sentence comprehension decreases with increasing working memory load and this decrease in the dyslexic group.
3. Methodology
In this study, the samples were selected from Persian-speaking children with dyslexia in the second grade of Tehran. Sixteen monolingual Persian children with dyslexia in Tehran, who were studying in the second grade of elementary school and were referred to learning disorders centers due to reading and writing problems, were selected as the experimental group. The reason for choosing the second grade is the completion of alphabet training and the beginning of whole word reading in this grade, in addition, most of the cases diagnosed and referred to learning disorder centers are second grade students. 32 students of the second grade of normal schools in Tehran were also selected as an available sample and examined as a control group (age-matched). Due to the small number of children referred to dyslexia centers and the withdrawal of some of them during the treatment period, sixteen dyslexic students and 32 normal students were selected and examined for comparison. To conduct this study, reading and comprehension tests were used. The average chronological age of the dyslexic group is 31.95 months and their average intelligence is 84.93, which according to the psychologist of the learning disorder center, all of them had normal intelligence.
4. Results
According to the results of the present study, there is a significant difference between the normal and dyslexic groups in all subtests of language development except the subtest of relational vocabulary. There is a significant difference between the two groups in most subtests of phonological awareness. Unlike grammatical judgment and lexical awareness subtests, the difference between the two groups is quite significant in the verb tense subtest. In both groups, there is a correlation between some subtests of meta linguistic with some subtests of language development, but other than the correlation between the subtests of lexical awareness and the oral vocabulary subtest of language development test, in children with dyslexia, there is not meaningful correlation in other subtests.
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