Tiffany P. Hogan, PhD, CCC-SLP - US grants

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Although most children learn to read with relative ease, others have great difficulty. Early reading problems often have a negative impact on later academic and economic advancement, and may potentially reduce quality of life. Research indicates that deficits in phonological awareness, one's sensitivity to the sound structure of language, underlies most early reading difficulties. However, little is known concerning the emergence of phonological awareness. This study will investigate the phonological and lexical processing of three groups of preschool children differing in phonological awareness or age. A word learning task will be employed in which children's responses to nonwords will be examined as these nonwords become lexicalized. The specific aims of this study address three questions: Do children differing in phonological awareness/age (1) show differences in the phonological processing of nonwords? (2) exhibit differences in lexical processing during word learning? and/or (3) evidence differences in the lexical representations of newly learned words? The long-term goal is to improve the understanding of the emergence of phonological awareness and aid in the early identification and intervention for children at risk for reading disabilities.

[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Although most children learn to read with relative ease, others have great difficulty. Early reading problems often have a negative impact on later academic and economic advancement, and potentially may reduce quality of life. Research indicates that deficits in phoneme awareness underlie most early reading difficulties. However, little is known of the critical language skills contributing to typical and atypical development of phoneme awareness. Three studies are proposed to investigate sublexical and lexical influences on a phoneme awareness task administered to typically developing children and those with dyslexia. The long-term goal of this line of inquiry is to elucidate language skills underpinning typical and atypical phoneme awareness development and, in turn, improve early identification and intervention for children at risk for reading disabilities. The long-term goal of this research is to determine critical language skills needed to acquire phoneme awareness and in turn use this knowledge to improve early identification and intervention for children at risk for reading impairment. [unreadable] Relevance: The long-term goal of this research is to determine critical language skills needed to acquire phoneme awareness and in turn use this knowledge to improve early identification and intervention for children at risk for reading impairment. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]

PROJECT SUMMARY Children with language impairment (LI) comprise nearly 20% of the population receiving special education services (Tomblin et al., 1997) and are six times more likely to have a reading impairment than their peers with typical language development (Stoeckel et al., 2013). Whereas most children with LI have poor reading comprehension (Catts et al., 2002), fewer than half have poor word-reading abilities, commensurate with dyslexia (Catts, Adlof, Hogan, & Weismer, 2005). In two large-scale studies that examined longitudinal reading outcomes in children with LI, factors could not be identified that reliably distinguished kindergarten children with LI who would go on to have good word reading abilities versus those who would go on to have dyslexia in 2nd grade and beyond (Catts et al., 2005; Bishop et al., 2009). The inability to distinguish future word-reading outcomes for young children with LI creates a critical barrier to efficacious treatment and prohibits optimal use of limited therapy time to address individual children's needs. Contemporary models of typical reading development center on a reciprocal relation between orthographic processing (letters and letter patterns) and phonological processing (sounds and sound patterns). In these models, early phonological processing underpins acquisition of the alphabetic principle (that letters represent sounds) and subsequent word reading, and in turn, orthographic knowledge impacts phonological processing (Share, 1995; Ziegler & Ferrand, 1998). Accordingly, orthographic and phonological processing are correlated in emerging typical readers and continue to develop in tandem with increasing word reading abilities (Hogan, Catts, & Little, 2005; Wagner et al., 1997). However, contemporary models cannot explain why more than half of children with LI develop good word reading skills despite early phonological processing weakness (Catts, Adlof, Hogan, & Weismer, 2005). Despite its significance to typical reading development, orthographic processing has largely been ignored in studies of children with LI. Our compelling pilot data are the foundation for our hypotheses that: a) initially weak phonological processing is compensated for by orthographic strengths in children with LI, and b) these early orthographic strengths will predict who among young children with LI will go onto have good word reading versus those who will go on to have dyslexia. Our specific aims are: 1) to determine the impact of exposure to orthography on the acquisition of new orthographic and phonological forms during word learning and how this changes over time in children with LI and their typically developing peers; 2) to characterize profiles of orthographic and phonological processing in children with LI and their typically developing peers from kindergarten to 2nd grade; and 3) to determine predictors of development in orthographic processing, phonological processing, and word reading in children with LI and their typically developing peers. Our aims fill a theoretical gap in which orthographic processing has been overlooked in reading and word learning studies involving children with LI, and they address methodological limitations that have negated conclusive findings on the reciprocity between phonological and orthographic processing. Our rigorous approach combines longitudinal research with carefully controlled experimental work. The innovation of this project includes our use of a novel, dynamic word learning paradigm, which captures phonological and orthographic knowledge and learning in a single task. Our findings will have broad clinical and theoretical impact by contributing to our long-term goals a) to create more precise tools for early identification of reading impairments in children with LI; b) to reveal theory-based mechanisms for the interrelated development of orthographic processing, phonological processing, and word reading; and c) to quantify orthographic and phonological learning profiles to inform individualized reading interventions.

PROJECT SUMMARY Children with language impairment (LI) comprise nearly 20% of the population receiving special education services (Tomblin et al., 1997) and are six times more likely to have a reading impairment than their peers with typical language development (Stoeckel et al., 2013). Whereas most children with LI have poor reading comprehension (Catts et al., 2002), fewer than half have poor word-reading abilities, commensurate with dyslexia (Catts, Adlof, Hogan, & Weismer, 2005). In two large-scale studies that examined longitudinal reading outcomes in children with LI, factors could not be identified that reliably distinguished kindergarten children with LI who would go on to have good word reading abilities versus those who would go on to have dyslexia in 2nd grade and beyond (Catts et al., 2005; Bishop et al., 2009). The inability to distinguish future word-reading outcomes for young children with LI creates a critical barrier to efficacious treatment and prohibits optimal use of limited therapy time to address individual children's needs. Contemporary models of typical reading development center on a reciprocal relation between orthographic processing (letters and letter patterns) and phonological processing (sounds and sound patterns). In these models, early phonological processing underpins acquisition of the alphabetic principle (that letters represent sounds) and subsequent word reading, and in turn, orthographic knowledge impacts phonological processing (Share, 1995; Ziegler & Ferrand, 1998). Accordingly, orthographic and phonological processing are correlated in emerging typical readers and continue to develop in tandem with increasing word reading abilities (Hogan, Catts, & Little, 2005; Wagner et al., 1997). However, contemporary models cannot explain why more than half of children with LI develop good word reading skills despite early phonological processing weakness (Catts, Adlof, Hogan, & Weismer, 2005). Despite its significance to typical reading development, orthographic processing has largely been ignored in studies of children with LI. Our compelling pilot data are the foundation for our hypotheses that: a) initially weak phonological processing is compensated for by orthographic strengths in children with LI, and b) these early orthographic strengths will predict who among young children with LI will go onto have good word reading versus those who will go on to have dyslexia. Our specific aims are: 1) to determine the impact of exposure to orthography on the acquisition of new orthographic and phonological forms during word learning and how this changes over time in children with LI and their typically developing peers; 2) to characterize profiles of orthographic and phonological processing in children with LI and their typically developing peers from kindergarten to 2nd grade; and 3) to determine predictors of development in orthographic processing, phonological processing, and word reading in children with LI and their typically developing peers. Our aims fill a theoretical gap in which orthographic processing has been overlooked in reading and word learning studies involving children with LI, and they address methodological limitations that have negated conclusive findings on the reciprocity between phonological and orthographic processing. Our rigorous approach combines longitudinal research with carefully controlled experimental work. The innovation of this project includes our use of a novel, dynamic word learning paradigm, which captures phonological and orthographic knowledge and learning in a single task. Our findings will have broad clinical and theoretical impact by contributing to our long-term goals a) to create more precise tools for early identification of reading impairments in children with LI; b) to reveal theory-based mechanisms for the interrelated development of orthographic processing, phonological processing, and word reading; and c) to quantify orthographic and phonological learning profiles to inform individualized reading interventions.

PROJECT SUMMARY The long-term goal of this research is to translate years of federally-funded basic science on comprehension processes and interventions to provide elementary-age children with strong, school-based language stimulation to improve reading comprehension. The short-term goal of this proposal is to stimulate language and comprehension skills in Grade 1 children at risk for reading comprehension failure by testing the efficacy of a modified, small-group, version of the Let's Know! intervention, which has shown to be efficacious as a whole- class curriculum. Let's Know! systematically targets lower- and higher-level language skills to improve both language skills and listening comprehension. Delivering small-group instruction affords a targeted focus on those children with low language abilities who are most at risk for poor reading comprehension, many of whom have Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). To accomplish our goal, we have three specific aims: (a) determine the efficacy of Let's Know! as a school-based, small-group, language-focused comprehension intervention for promoting the lower-and higher-level language skills of Grade 1 children who are at risk for comprehension difficulties due to low language, (b) determine the efficacy of Let's Know! for promoting the comprehension skills of children who are at risk for comprehension difficulties due to low language, and (c) determine the extent to which intervention effects are moderated by dosage, initial language skill, DLD status, word reading skill, nonverbal IQ, and family socioeconomic status. The proposed project involves a collaborative and multi-disciplinary partnership among researchers who study basic developmental processes pertaining to language and reading acquisition as well as school-based prevention and intervention to support language and reading skills. We use a three-phase approach to accomplish this clinical trial. Phase 1 encompasses key research activities to ready the intervention for implementation in Phase 2's randomized controlled trial (RCT). Phase 2 comprises a multisite RCT to determine the efficacy of Let's Know! as a small- group, language-focused comprehension intervention when implemented at children's respective schools. The RCT will meet guidelines for high-quality efficacy trials in education and prevention science. Phase 3 will comprise analyses of impacts on children's language and comprehension skills, in both the short- and long- term, from Grade 1 through Grade 3 as well as moderation of effects. This proposal is innovative in three primary ways. First, the proposal focuses on prevention of reading comprehension failure, in children most vulnerable to failure, in a crucially important area of reading instruction that is weak or missing in most US schools ? explicit and systematic teaching of language and comprehension skills. Second, the study builds on decades of basic research on comprehension processes and evidence-based pedagogical practices to translate these into a practical intervention that fits squarely within the US educational system. Considering that evidence-based practices are rarely implemented due to research-to-practice gaps, building the intervention to fit in the current educational system increases its chance of implementation, if found to be efficacious. Third, the proposal considers longitudinal impacts of the intervention and moderators of the effect, which has both clinical and theoretical implications for comprehension processes and interventions.