Mirror invariance or generalisation is the ability to recognise objects as being the same regardless of their spatial orientation. However, when, for example, learning to read Roman script, children need to hone these skills so that they can readily discriminate between mirror letters such as b/d or p/b. Korean Hangul makes a particularly…

The purpose of this study is to compare the capacity of students to write Makassar Lontara script before and after utilizing the letter card medium. This investigation used three steps: pre-test, therapy, and posttest. This study included fifty public Yunior High School students in the Makassar city, South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Participatory…

In four experiments, we investigated the impact of letter case (lower case vs. UPPER CASE) on the processing of sequences of written words. Experiment 1 used the rapid parallel visual presentation (RPVP) paradigm with postcued identification of one word in a five-word sequence. The sequence could be grammatically correct (e.g., "the boy likes…

A number of studies suggest a link between musical training and both specific and general cognitive abilities, but despite some positive results, there is disagreement about which abilities are improved. This study aims to investigate the effects of a music education program both on a domain-specific competence (meta-musical awareness), and on…

We predicted that Arabic-speaking children with specific learning disabilities in reading (dyslexia) and spelling (in writing) benefit from a visuomotor-based intervention programme for the development of letter knowledge and the improvement of word and pseudo-word decoding as well as spelling (dictation). It was predicted that the mediation of…

The present study investigated the representation and processing of segmental and tonal information in visual Chinese word recognition in native and non-native Chinese readers. Two experiments using homophone judgement paradigm were conducted. When judging two Chinese characters (Experiment 1), both groups showed difficulties when the segmental…

When reading in a second language, a reader's first language may be involved. For word reading, the question is how and at what level: lexical, pre-lexical, or both. In three experiments, we employed an implicit reading task (color judgment) and an explicit reading task (word naming) to test whether a Chinese meaning equivalent character and its…

Background: There is emerging evidence that individuals with developmental dyslexia show deficits in visual-spatial attention. This study focused on visual searches and examined whether visual search deficits would be found in Chinese children with dyslexia. More importantly, we examined the associations between dyslexia and distinct types of…

In this classic edition of their ground-breaking work, Usha Goswami and Peter Bryant revisit their influential theory about how phonological skills support the development of literacy. The book describes three causal factors which can account for children's reading and spelling development: (1) pre­school phonological knowledge of rhyme and…

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of phonological information on visual word recognition by using letter transposition effects. The Korean writing system gives a unique opportunity to investigate such phenomenon since the transposition of the beginning consonant (onset) and the end consonant (coda) of a certain syllable allows one…

Participants in this study completed an online experiment in which they wrote essays by stylus or keyboard. Three translation measures (length of language burst, length of pauses, and rate of pausing) and four transcription measures (total words, total time, words/minute, and percent spelling errors) for composition were analyzed for two research…

We present the case study of MB--a bilingual child with Down syndrome (DS) who speaks Russian (first language [L1]) and English (second language [L2]) and has learned to read in two different alphabets with different symbol systems. We demonstrate that, in terms of oral language, MB is as proficient in Russian as English, with a mild advantage for…

The aim of the current study was to examine the effects of bilingualism on letter and category fluency tasks. Participants were 1,600 monolingual and bilingual children from three cities in Iran: Tehran (Persian monolinguals), Tabriz (Turkish-Persian bilinguals), and Sanandaj (Kurdish-Persian bilinguals). We separately presented nine Persian…

This contribution compares literacy instruction in three different scripts in Eritrea. It uses data stemming from classroom observations of beginning readers of Tigrinya (Ge'ez script), Arabic (Arabic script) and Saho (Roman alphabet), the examination of teaching materials, and teacher interviews. Our analysis focuses on literacy events. We…

The relationship between first language (L1) typology, defined as the classification of languages according to their structural characteristics (e.g. phonological systems and writing systems), and the development of second (L2) and third (L3) language skills and literacy proficiency in multilingual children was investigated in this study. The…