Studies on the processing of non-active (NACT) voice have indicated that passive sentences are more difficult to comprehend and require more time to process. Children with Reading Difficulties (RDs) face problems with sentence comprehension, which are often attributed to phonological processing, working memory, syntactic awareness limitations, or a maturation delay. Using an online self-paced reading task, we investigated the effect of voice morphology and argument structure on sentence processing in 3 groups of participants; 30 children RDs, 28 Age-Matched (AM) controls without RDs, and 28 young Beginning Readers (BRs). Our results suggest that although the RDs and BR groups present similar reading times, their reading patterns differ qualitatively. Beginning Readers experienced greater processing delays when processing NACT structures, suggesting that they have not yet fully grasped the properties of the various NACT verbs. However, the RDs group presents effects not found in the BR group; children with RDs were sensitive to the properties of the different types of NACT verbs showing (a) evidence that the language processor successfully engages in predictions based on the morphosyntactic and lexical characteristics of verbs and (b) preference for default/prototypical readings. These results point toward processing limitations that are greatly affected by syntactic complexity.

Because of recent concerns about the replication of published results in the behavioral and biomedical sciences (Ioannidis, PLoS Medicine, Vol. 2, 2005, p. e124; Open Science Collaboration, Science, Vol. 349, 2015, p. 943; Pashler & Wagenmakers, Perspectives on Psychological Science, Vol. 7, 2012, pp. 528–530), we have conducted a replication of our recently published analyses of longitudinal reading performance and attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder data from twin pairs selected for reading difficulties (Wadsworth et al., Twin Research and Human Genetics, Vol. 18, 2015, pp. 755–761). Results obtained from univariate and bivariate (DeFries & Fulker, Behavior Genetics, Vol. 15, 1985, pp. 467–473; Acta Geneticae Medicae et Gemellologiae: Twin Research, Vol. 37, 1988, pp. 205–216) analyses of data from a subset of twin pairs tested in the International Longitudinal Twin Study of Early Reading Development at post-4th grade, and its continuation into high school at post-9th grade, were compared to those from our previous report. Similar measures of reading performance, the same measures of inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity, and similar selection criteria were used in the two studies. In general, the patterns of results obtained from these two independent studies were highly similar. Thus, these results clearly illustrate the principle that findings from studies in quantitative behavioral genetics often replicate (Plomin et al., Perspectives on Psychological Science, Vol. 11, 2016, pp. 3–23).

Visual stress (VS) affects reading in 5–12% of the general population and 31–36% of children with reading disorders. Symptoms include print distortions and visual discomfort when reading, and are exacerbated by fluorescent lighting. Prior research has indicated that VS can also affect proficient readers. We therefore examined levels of visual discomfort in a group of expert readers (n = 24) under both standard and spectrally-filtered fluorescent lighting. Participants rated their awareness of six symptoms of VS under each lighting condition. Under the standard condition, 4(16.7%) of the group recorded moderate to high levels of VS. Differences in symptom levels and reading speed between conditions were analysed using the Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test. Under the filter condition, the group reported less discomfort regarding all six symptoms of VS surveyed. The differences were significant with respect to three of the symptoms (p = .029 - p < .001), with a medium effect size in all of them (r = .31 - r = .46) and total score (p = .007; r = .39). Variations in reading proficiency included significantly fewer self-corrections (p = .019) and total errors (p = .004). Here we present evidence that VS-type symptoms of reading discomfort are not confined to populations with reading difficulties and may also occur in proficient readers, and that simple adaptations to fluorescent lighting may alleviate such symptoms.

The focus of this paper is on the assessment of the two main processes that children must acquire at the single word reading level: word recognition (lexical) and decoding (nonlexical) skills. Guided by the framework of the dual route model, this study aimed to (1) investigate the impact of item characteristics on test performance, and (2) determine to what extent widely used reading measures vary in their detection of lexical and nonlexical reading difficulties. Thirty children with reading difficulties were administered selected reading subtests from the Woodcock-Johnson III, the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test – Second Edition, the Castles and Coltheart Reading Test 2 (CC2), as well as a measure of nonverbal IQ. Both within-subjects analyses and descriptive data are presented. Results suggest that in comparison to a pure measure of irregular word reading, children with reading difficulties perform better on word identification subtests containing both regular and irregular word items. Furthermore, certain characteristics (e.g., length, similarity to real words) appear to influence the level of difficulty of nonword items and tests. The CC2 subscales identified the largest proportions of children with reading difficulties. Differences between all test scores were of statistical and clinical significance. Clinical and theoretical implications are discussed.

In recent years, limitations of the discrepancy definition of specific reading difficulties have led researchers to propose that dyslexia is best described as a core phonological deficit. With studies of the normal development of reading as a backdrop, this paper reviews the phonological processing deficit hypothesis of dyslexia. The extant evidence suggests that phonological difficulties in dyslexia persist throughout development from the preschool years into adulthood, despite compensation of reading deficits. Moreover, individual differences in the behavioural manifestation of dyslexia are consistent with differences in the severity of underlying phonological difficulties. Implications for the early identification of dyslexia and for interventions to prevent reading failure are discussed.