Minna Torppa University of Jyväskylä, Finland Den sjunde nordiska kongressen om dyslexipedagogik

1. Reading difficultiesfrombirth to adolescence: Earlypredictors and links to motivation and well-being Minna Torppa University of Jyväskylä, Finland Den sjunde nordiska kongressen om dyslexipedagogik Stockholm 14. – 16.8.2014

2. OUTLINE I Decodingskills and dyslexia II Reading comprehensiondevelopment … and howtheyarelinked with: • Familyrisk • Cognitiveskills • Motivation • Well-being

3. Data

4. Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Dyslexia (JLD) • A familyriskstudy for dyslexia • Fouragecohortsfollowedfrombirth to age 20 • About 100 children with highfamilialrisk for dyslexia and 100 controlchildren. • On grades 1,2,3,7, and 9 alsoclassmateswereassessed (n ≈ 1500-2500). • Started: 1993, currentlyfundeduntil2019

5. AIMS OF JLD (1) Identify predictors of dyslexia (2) Specify the developmental paths leading to reading difficulties (3) Examine the contribution of environmental factors associated with dyslexia (4) Examine the developmental problems co-occurring with dyslexia (5) Develop methodology for early assessment and intervention

6. Born at the hospitals of Central Finland during 01.04.93-31.07.96 N= 9368 infants I Screening II Screening III Screening Short questionnaire administered at the maternity clinics N=8427 parents Compre-hensive questionnaire N=3146 parents AT -RISK GROUP N=117 infants Assessment of parents’ reading and spelling skills N=410 parents CONTROL GROUP N=105 infants VII grade VIII grade IX grade II grade III grade 14 month I grade Neo- natal 6 month 18 month 2 years 2½ years 3½years 4½ years 5 years 5½years 6½years N = 85 N = 101 N = 88 N = 108 N = 108 N = 107 N = 107 N = 107 N = 107 N = 107 N = 107 N = 107 N = 107 N = 112 N = 108 N = 108 N = 107 N = 66 N = 81 N = 76 N = 92 N = 93 N = 96 N = 94 N = 95 N = 93 N = 93 N = 93 N = 92 N = 92 N = 96 N = 94 N = 94 N = 95 N = 1452 N = 1705 N = 1549 N = 1756 N = 2641 CLASSMATES

7. I Decodingskills and dyslexia • Reading development and dyslexia in grades 2, 3, and 8 • Links to familyrisk and cognitiveskills • Linksto psycho-socialfunctioning

8. Familyrisk and dyslexia Grade 2 dyslexia • 38 at-risk group children (35.8 %) • 9 control group children (9.8 %) • About fourfold risk if familial incidence of dyslexia

9. Earlycognitivepredictors of Grade 2 dyslexia(meanage 8.9 years) Logistic regression analysesat ages 3.5 years, 4.5 years,and 5.5 years with predictors: Family risk, Phonological awareness, Short-term memory, RAN, Vocabulary, Pseudowordrepetition and Letter naming Significantpredictors of dyslexiawere: 3.5 years:Familialrisk, RAN, and Letterknowledge 4.5 years: Familialrisk, Phonologicalawareness, and Letterknowledge 5.5 years: Familialrisk, RAN, and Letterknowledge Puolakanaho, A., Ahonen, T., Aro, M., Eklund, K., Leppänen, P. H. T., Poikkeus, A.-M., Tolvanen, A., Torppa, A., & Lyytinen, H. (2007). Very early phonological and language skills: estimating individual risk of reading disability. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 48(9), 923-931.

10. DevelopmentbeyondGrade2? Torppa, Eklund, van Bergen, & Lyytinen

12. Grade 8 dyslexia • 40 at-risk group children (39.6 %) • 9 control group children (11.1 %)  Stability of diagnosis?

13. Background • The proportion of late-emerging cases has been reported to be approximately 40% of all RD cases (Cattset al., 2012; Leach et al., 2003; Lipka et al., 2006). • Surprisingly little researchhas been conducted on the characteristics of resolving and late-emerging RD, and all in English.

14. Participants • n= 182, followed from birth to Grade 8 • Children at risk (n = 101) had a parent and one or more other close family members with dyslexia. • 86 girls and 96 boys

15. Dyslexia Criteria in Grades 2 and 8 Dyslexia criteria were based on the following fluency tasks: • Word list reading, • Text reading, and • Pseudowordtext reading. A cut-off criterion for deficient performance was defined for each measure, using the 10th percentile in the distribution of the children without family risk. Dyslexia = scores below the criterion in at least two out of three measures of reading speed.

16. Stability of diagnosis? • 40%had dyslexia in Grades 2 and 8 (persistent-dyslexia), • 27%only in Grade 2 (resolving), and • 33%only in Grade 8 (late-emerging).

17. Group differences?

18. CognitiveMeasures • Vocabulary. At age 3.5 and 5.5 years the Boston Naming Test (Kaplan, Goodglass, & Weintraub, 1983). In Grade 2 the WISC-III (Wechsler, 1991). • Memory. Verbal short-term memory: 6.5 years, Grades 3 and 8 with a forward digit span test. • Phonological awareness At age 4.5, 5.5, and 6.5 years phonological awareness was measured with a composite mean of z-scores from four tasks: First phoneme identification, First phoneme production, Segment identification, and Synthesis • Rapid naming. The total naming time of 30 (5.5 years) or 50 objects (6.5 years, and in Grades 2, 3 and 8 ) (Denckla & Rudel, 1974) • Letter knowledge. All 29 lowercase letters (23 typically used and 6 for the rare loan words) in the Finnish alphabet were presented at ages 4.5 years, 5.5 years, and 6.5 years. • IQ (Grade 2). Four performance-quotient subtests (Picture Completion, Block Design, Object Assembly, and Coding) and five verbal-performance subtests (Similarities, Vocabulary, Comprehension, Series of numbers, and Arithmetic) of the WISC-III-R were used.

19. Cognitive skills • Resolvinggroupimprovedalso in vocabulary, RAN and PA • Resolvinggrouponlyhadclearearlyproblems in vocabulary • Late-emerginghadclearproblemsonly in RAN

20. ParentalMeasures Parental assessment • Text-reading fluency. Parents were asked to read aloud two passages (218 and 128 words, respectively) as fluently and accurately as possible. A measure of reading fluency was the average reading time for the two texts • Phoneme deletion. Parents were asked to pronounce a given word without the second phoneme. The task included 16 words (e.g., kaupunki ‘city’ became kupunki) of 4 to 10 letters with 2 to 4 syllables. Deletion of the second phoneme yielded a pseudoword. • Rapid Naming (RAN). On each of three tasks, participants were asked to name, as rapidly as possible, a matrix of 50 items comprising objects, digits, or a mixture of digits, objects, and letters. A mean composite score of the three standardized RAN scores was calculated for the prediction analyses . • Verbal short-term memory. The Digit Span subtest of WAIS-III (Wechsler, 1991) was administered Two sets of items, one for forward, the other for reverse, were used. Scaled scores were derived from the manual. • Vocabulary. In the Vocabulary subtest of WAIS-III (Wechsler, 1991), participants were required to define 35 words in his/her own words. Scaled scores were derived from the manual.

21. Parental skills

22. In sum • Dyslexia status was not stable. • Family risk high in all dyslexia groups • Persistent dyslexia linked to difficulties in phonological awareness, RAN, and letter knowledge • Late-emerging dyslexia linked to RAN (also parental) and being a boy • Resolving dyslexia linked to slow early development also in vocabulary, phonological awareness, RAN, and letter knowledge and being a girl • Implications: It is important to keep following children’s literacy development beyond the early grades.

23. I Decodingskills and dyslexia • Links to familyrisk and cognitiveskills • Reading development and dyslexia in grades 2, 3, and 8 • Dyslexia and linksto psycho-socialfunctioning Parhiala, Torppa, Eklund, Aro, Poikkeus & Ahonen

24. Dyslexia & psychosocialfunctioning • Dyslexia is linked to difficulties in the social domain, and in externalizing, and internalizing, and attentionalproblems (e.g., Dahle, Knivsberg & Andreassen, 2011; Morgan, Farkas & Wu, 2012). • Areproblems with psychosocialfunctioningsecondaryproblemsorco-occurring with dyslexia? • Previousstudiesinconsistent in theirinterpretationsand havetypicallystartedafterschoolentry;

25. AT -RISK GROUP N=108 infants CONTROL GROUP N=92 infants # of children who have attended the last finished assessment phase at the 3rd grade Born at the hospitals of Central Finland during 01.04.93-31.07.96 N= 9368 infants I Screening II Screening III Screening Short questionnaire administered at the maternity clinics N=8427 parents Compre-hensive questionnaire N=3146 parents AT -RISK GROUP N=117 infants Assessment of parents’ reading and spelling skills N=410 parents CONTROL GROUP N=105 infants School entry VII grade VIII grade IX grade II grade III grade 14 month I grade Neo- natal 6 month 18 month 2 years 2½ years 3½years 4 years 5 years 5½years 6years 9years 4 years 6years N = 70 N = 82 N = 21 N = 108 N = 108 N = 107 N = 107 N = 107 N = 107 N = 107 N = 107 N = 107 N = 107 N = 112 N = 108 N = 108 N = 107 N = 108 N = 107 N = 107 N = 61 N = 76 N = 14 N = 92 N = 93 N = 96 N = 94 N = 95 N = 93 N = 93 N = 93 N = 92 N = 92 N = 96 N = 94 N = 94 N = 95 N = 93 N = 93 N = 92 N = 1515 N = 2859 CLASSMATES

26. Psychosocialfunctioningmeasure • ParentRating Scale of the BehaviorAssessment System for Children (BASC, Reynolds & Kamphaus, 1992): 4-point scale ranging from “Never” to “Almost Always”. 1) Adaptiveskills(Adaptability, Social skills), 2)Attentionproblems, 3) Externalizingproblems (Aggression, Hyperactivity), and 4) Internalizingproblems(Anxiety, Depression, Somatization).  

27. Results Children with dyslexia: • More problemsin adaptation and social skills prior to school entry: 4 and 6 years. • More inattention both prior to school entry and after school entry: 4, 6 and 9 years. • No differences in externalizing or internalizing problem behavior  Difference in change from age 6 to age 9?

28. Changefrom 6 to 9 years • Adaptation and social skills:Children with dyslexiaimprovedmore in adaptability and social skillsthanchildrenwithoutdyslexia • Inattention: Differentialchange for girls and boys: inattentionincreasedacrosstransition to schoolonlyamonggirls. Bothgirls with and withoutdyslexia. • Externalizing and internalizing problems: no change

29. In sum Inattention: • problemspriorto schoolentry notsecondary • Increasefor girlsboth with and withoutdyslexia  notsecondary Adaptability and social skills: • problemsprior to schoolentry notsecondary • positivechangeamongchildren with dyslexia  notsecondary Externalizing & Internalizingproblems • No linksto Grade 2 dyslexia

30. II Reading comprehension • Simpleview of reading • Reading comprehension in grades 1-2 and 9 • Links to skills and motivation

31. Background Simpleview of reading(Gough & Tunmer, 1986); reading = ƒ (decoding and comprehension) Dyslexia good Comprehension poor Poorreaders Hyperlexia good poor Decoding • Torppa, M., Tolvanen, A., Poikkeus, A-M. Eklund, K., Lerkkanen, M-K., Leskinen, E., & Lyytinen, H. (2007). Reading Development Subtypes and Their Early Characteristics. Annals of Dyslexia, 57, 3-32.

32. Decoding and reading comprehension in JLD A 2-year follow-up data with fourgroupassessments of 1750 childrenfrom 93 classrooms.

33. Identification of Subtypes: a 2-level Mixture Model The search for subtypes was based on individual variation Classroom effect was significant and ranged between 4 % and 10 % (Intraclass correlation). C = latent categorical variable (subtyping), fwr = fluent word recognition rc = reading comprehension. W = within-level, B = between-level. Numbers denote assessment time-point.

34. 5 Reading subtypeswereidentified

35. Group differences in: • family risk for dyslexia • early cognitive development profiles?

36. Reading Subtypes and FamilyRisk for Dyslexia Table 6. Crosstabulation of the Reading Subtypes by Study Groups (Frequencies in Parentheses)

37. Earlycognitivedevelopment 1-6 years

38. Bookreading: alone and with parent

39. In sum: • Already in grade 2differentiation in fluency and comprehension • Poorreaders with bothfluency and comprehensionproblemshad the poorestcognitiveskills. • Poorcomprehensionlinkedparticularly to vocabulary • Slowreadinglinkedparticularly to RAN • Familyrisk for dyslexiawas a risk for readingspeedbutnot for readingcomprehension

40. Grade 9 PISA readingcomprehension Minna Torppa, Kenneth Eklund, Sari Sulkunen, and Pekka Niemi

41. background • PISA is today the most well-known assessment and comparison tool of adolescent’s reading skill in different countries around the world and its influence on the development of educational systems is enormous. • All 34 OECD member countries and 31 partner countries and economies participated in PISA 2012 representing more than 80% of the world economy (OECD, 2013). • Despite its widely accepted stature and influence on global educational debate and policy making, empirical research on explanations of the success and failure in PISA tasks are scarce

42. participants N=1309 9th grade Finnish-speaking students from 95 classrooms All schools were typical Finnish schools organizing teaching according to national curriculum.

43. PISA readingmeasure • PISA reading literacy link items which are items used repeatedly in each cycle of the survey to ensure the comparability of the measurement (OECD 2010b, 26; 2013, 45). • In the booklet, there were 8 different texts which the students were asked to read and answer several questions per material. The reading materials included texts, tables, graphs, and figures. • Of the questions, 12 required students to access and retrieve information, 12 to integrate and interpret information, and seven to reflect and evaluate information. • Students were allowed to use 60 minutes for completing the task. • Cronbach’salpha reliability coefficient for the total score in this sample was .80.

44. Reading fluency (1) Sentence reading fluency task: The task was to read as many statements in 2 minutes and decide if the sentence was true by answering ‘yes’ or ‘no’. (2) Error search task: The task was to proofread words written on a sheet of paper and mark as many incorrectly spelled (either a wrong letter, extra letter or missing letter) words as possible in 3 minutes. (3) Word chains: The task was to mark with a pencil as many word boundaries (i.e. places, where one word ends and another one begins) as possible in 90 seconds. Cronbach’salpha reliability coefficient for reading fluency composite score was .78.

45. Motivation Reading self-concept: Students were asked to evaluate their reading skills in comparison to their peers. Three items were included, one for reading accuracy, one for reading fluency, and one for reading comprehension. Cronbach’salpha reliability coefficient was .75. Task avoidance: The children’s task-avoidant behavior was measured using the Behavioral Strategy Rating Scale (BSR; Onatsu & Nurmi, 1995; see also Zhang, Nurmi, Kiuru, Lerkkanen, & Aunola, 2011). The measure includes five statements concerning behavior when facing difficult tasks. Cronbach’s alpha .79 Persistence:The children’s task-avoidant behavior was measured using the Behavioral Stratety Rating Scale (BSR; Onatsu & Nurmi, 1995; see also Zhang, Nurmi, Kiuru, Lerkkanen, & Aunola, 2011). Four statements. Cronbach’s alpha .71 Leisure-time reading: how often they read different printed materials with a five-point Likert –scale- Three items, one for books, one for comics, and one for newspapers and magazines.

46. Grade 9 SEM for explaining PISA (χ2 (145) = 321.02, p= .00, CFI=.97, TLI=.96, RMSEA=.03, SRMS=.04

47. Some general conclusion • Reading as decoding and comprehension • Developmentalpaths and varyingpace of development • Familyriskfordyslexia and cognitiveskills (RAN, LK, PA) arestrongpredictors of decoding, butnotsomuch for comprehension • Alsopersistence and leisuretimereadingarelinked to readingskills • Psychosocialfunctioning and dyslexia: no evidence for dyslexiabeing a riskfactor for psychosocialfunctioning in the earlygrades.

48. Thankyou! minna.p.torppa@jyu.fi