| Developmental dyslexia is defined as individuals struggling with accurate word identification,despite adequate intelligence,education and effort.A critical process in word identification is the conversion of written symbols to phonological units(grapheme-phoneme mapping).In alphabetic writing system,developmental dyslexics with phonological deficit have been found exhibiting an impairment on grapheme-phoneme mapping,which might be attributed to the individuals' phonological analysis difficulty.As a dominant type(up to 81%)of Chinese characters,phonogram characters have phonetic components that provide phonological clues for the character pronunciation.Skilled Chinese readers pay more attention to phonetic components during grapheme-phoneme mapping.Given the underlying phonological deficit of Chinese dyslexic children(DD),the current study aimed to investigate how they pay attention to the phonetic components during grapheme-phoneme mapping.We basically raise two questions,that during naming phonogram characters a)how did Chinese dyslexic children with phonological deficits pay attention to the phonetic components of phonogram characters,and b)whether they can name unfamiliar characters according to the regularity and consistency of the phonetic components.Three groups of children(20 DD,20 chronological-age-matched,and 20 reading-level-matched)were instructed to name phonogram characters as quickly as possible when their eye movements were recorded by an Eyelink 1000plus eye tracker.Experiment 1a,1b,2a and 2b were aimed to invesitigate how did Chinese dyslexic children with phonological deficits pay attention to the phonetic components of phonogram characters.In Experiment la,the phonetic components of phonogram characters were manipulated on the left(PS characters)or right(SP characters).The results showed that naming accuracy of DD's was significantly lower than the controls and DD showed a higher proportion of dwell time and fixations on phonetic-than orthographic-components when naming SP characters,suggesting that the phonetic components of SP characters gained DD's prior attention.In Experiment 1 b,an Eyelink 1 000plus eye tracker was used to ensure that before the stimuli exhibited,the subjects' eyes were keeping dwelling at the middle edge of left-and-right components for at least 500ms.The results showed that the accuracy of naming SP characters was significantly lower than naming PS characters,indicating that naming of SP characters was impaired when the prior attention of the phonetic components had been limited.In Experiment 2a,the phonetic components were manipulated on the top(TB characters)or bottom(BT characters).The results showed that naming accuracy of DD's was significantly lower than the controls and DD showed more proportion of dwell time and fixations on phonetic-than orthographic-components when naming both TB and BT characters,suggesting that the phonetic components of TB and BT characters gained DD's prior attention.In Experiment 2b,an Eyelink 1000plus eye tracker was used to ensure that before the stimuli exhibited,the subjects' eyes were keeping dwelling at the middle edge of top-and-bottom components for at least 500ms.The results showed that the accuracy of naming BT characters was significantly lower than naming TB characters,indicating that naming of BT characters was impaired when the prior attention of the phonetic components had been limited.Experiment 3 and 4 were designed to explore whether DD can name unfamiliar characters according to the regularity and consistency of the phonetic componentsExperiment 3 was a 3(type of subjects:DD,CA,RL)× 2(regularity:regular,irregular)× 2(familiarity:familiar,unfamiliar)design.The results showed that DD's accuracy in naming regular characters was significantly higher than naming irregular characters,exhibiting a regularity effect.However,DD showed significantly lower accuracy than CA in naming unfamiliar characters.When name familiar characters.DD showed more proportion of dwell time and fixations on regular characters' phonetic components;while naming unfamiliar characters,they showed more proportion of dwell time and fixations on irregular characters' phonetic components.The results indicated that DD can name unfamiliar characters according to the regularity rules,but this ability was lagging behind their chronological-aged peers.Experiment 4 was a 3(type of subjects:DD,CA,RL)× 2(consistency:high consistent,low consistent)× 2(familiarity:familiar,unfamiliar)design.The results showed that DD's accuracy in naming high consistent characters was significantly higher than naming low consistent characters,exhibiting a consistency effect.However,DD showed significantly lower accuracy than CA and RL no matter in familiar or unfamiliar characters.When name familiar characters,DD showed more proportion of dwell time and fixations on high consistent characters' phonetic components;while naming unfamiliar characters,DD showed no significant difference in eye movements.The results indicated that DD can name unfamiliar characters according to the consistency rules,but this ability was lagging behind their chronological-aged peers and reading-level matched children.In Experiment 5,subjects were required to name characters that can become the phonetic components in phonogram characters.Results:DD showed significantly lower naming accuracy than CA and RL,suggesting an impairment of DD in naming characters that can become the phonetic components.We conclude,1)although DD exhibit deficits in naming phonogram characters,they are able to pay prior attention to the phonetic components that position on the right,top and bottom part of phonogram characters;and 2)DD can name unfamiliar characters according to the regularity rules of phonogram characters,however,this ability was lagging behind their chronological-aged peers;3)DD can name unfamiliar characters according the regularity rules of phonogram characters,however,this ability was lagging behind their chronological-aged peers and reading-level matched children. |
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