This research was performed to see how useful dynamic testing of reading and writing would be for children with and without dyslexia and to explore the relationship between dynamic testing of...Show moreThis research was performed to see how useful dynamic testing of reading and writing would be for children with and without dyslexia and to explore the relationship between dynamic testing of reading and writing and intelligence, specifically fluid and crystallised intelligence. To research this, this research had an experimental pretest-training-posttest design with two groups—dyslexic and non-dyslexic—as well as two conditions—training and no-training. The participants were children in primary school between the ages of 7 and 9. The study consisted of two sessions: a preliminary investigation and a dynamic test. The dynamic test used was the EPALE-NL. It consists of four subtests: phonemic awareness, prosodic awareness, sounds and verbs, and context words. A significant difference was found between the group that was trained and the group that was not trained, in specific for the subtest prosodic awareness, with the trained group showing more improvement in accuracy. For the performance on the posttest by the dyslexic group and non-dyslexic group, no significant difference was found between the groups. No significant relationship was found between the gain score and fluid and crystallised intelligence. Dynamic testing of reading and writing has shown potential to be used in the classroom for its previously discovered benefits, as well as its ability to teach both dyslexics and non-dyslexics of varying intelligence.Show less
Reading and writing are important skills in life. However, children with dyslexia, a neurodevelopmental learning disorder with a genetic basis, have difficulty with these skills. Dynamic assessment...Show moreReading and writing are important skills in life. However, children with dyslexia, a neurodevelopmental learning disorder with a genetic basis, have difficulty with these skills. Dynamic assessment might be a better predictor of children’s cognitive abilities and reading and writing skills than static tests. Dynamic assessment is based on the idea that learning is a social proces and uses feedback. This study investigated the effectiveness of dynamic assessment on reading and writing performance, specifically phonemic awareness, prosodic awareness and spelling, and whether there were group differences between dyslexic and non dyslexic children, and boys and girls. The participants included 91 children aged seven to nine, with 45.1% diagnosed with dyslexia. The participants were divided in an experimental condition with a pretest-training-posttest design, and a control condition with a pretestposttest-training design. It was found that the children in the experimental condition improved more over time than the children in the control condition on prosodic awareness. No group differences were found in the effectiveness of the dynamic test. These results show that the dynamic test can be an effective tool in education for increasing the reading and writing skills in children and examining their learning potential.Show less
The behavioural overlap observed between developmental dyslexia and other neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) such as ADHD and ASD is an ongoing topic of research. The complexity of these...Show moreThe behavioural overlap observed between developmental dyslexia and other neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) such as ADHD and ASD is an ongoing topic of research. The complexity of these conditions, coupled with the overlap in behavioural characteristics, contributes to the challenge of accurately diagnosing dyslexia. Consequently, there is a prevalent tendency for learning disabilities such as dyslexia to be underdiagnosed. This study aims to examine whether there are specific cognitive impairments attributable to dyslexia, that are not observed in NDDs in general. The answer to this question was examined by comparing the cognitive profile of children diagnosed with a NDD and dyslexia to children diagnosed with a NDD but not dyslexia. The WISC-V was administered to 57 children aged between 7 and 16 years. The findings of this study showed no differences in the frequency of a deviant IQ profile between children with a NDD, with or without (suspected) dyslexia. In addition, the results showed no stronger relative weakness on the indexes of working memory, verbal comprehension, and processing speed for children with dyslexia compared to children with a NDD but not dyslexia. To conclude, the current study found no evidence for specific cognitive impairments attributable to dyslexia. Due to the small sample size in this study, further conclusions cannot be drawn from these results. Since the obtained results contradict the results of previous studies, a follow-up study to gain more knowledge about the cognitive profile of dyslexia in co-occurrence with other NDDs is advised.Show less
The discussed research entails the replication of a previous study investigating the possible effect of the interhemispheric deficit theory of dyslexia, through researching the redundant bilateral...Show moreThe discussed research entails the replication of a previous study investigating the possible effect of the interhemispheric deficit theory of dyslexia, through researching the redundant bilateral advantage (RBA) for dyslexic and control participants. A multiverse analysis was performed on existing research, to provide more robust results, and replicate findings. Participants were excluded, assumptions checked, and outliers removed, resulting in twelve different datasets. The performed multiverse analysis looked at the significant presence of a RBA in controls, a significant difference in RBA between dyslexic and control participants, and a significant difference in between right visual field (RVF) and left visual field (LVF) conditions, in a VHF paradigm. The results concur with the study replicated, and all datasets showed the similar levels of significance. There was a significant RBA in the control group, yet no significant difference was found with the dyslexic group. A significant difference in RVF and LVF difference was found between the groups. This was caused by lower LVF accuracy scores in the dyslexic group, suggesting the presence of an LVF cost in dyslexia. Handedness showed to have an influence on the RBA scores in participants. Future suggestions are made in regards to improved research designs and improvements in multiverse analyses for more robust and transparent research.Show less
This study investigated the effect of a dynamic test in reading and writing compared to a static test for 87 children in elementary schools in the Netherlands (aged 7-9 years old). Static tests...Show moreThis study investigated the effect of a dynamic test in reading and writing compared to a static test for 87 children in elementary schools in the Netherlands (aged 7-9 years old). Static tests measure the knowledge a child already has at the moment of testing, while on the other hand in a dynamic test children are provided with feedback, prompts or training in order to demonstrate more of their learning potential. Dynamic tests are especially useful for children with intellectual disabilities or learning impairments. Children with and without the diagnosis of dyslexia were allocated to either the experimental or the control condition. Children in the experimental condition of this study received a training in between pretest and posttest, whereas those in the control condition received the training after the posttest. Results showed a positive effect of training on the subtests prosodic awareness, spelling sounds and verbs and context dependent spelling, meaning that the group who received the dynamic test showed more progress from pretest to posttest in these subtests than the group who received the static test. This difference in progress did not apply to the subtest phonemic awareness. No significant gender differences and differences in performance between the dyslexic and the non-dyslexic children were found.Show less
