Search Abstracts | Symposia | Slide Sessions | Poster Sessions
Different responsiveness to a phonological intervention in Chinese children and adults with reading disability
Poster Session E, Sunday, September 14, 11:00 am - 12:30 pm, Field House
Mingyang HUA1, Fan CAO1; 1University of Hong Kong
Phonological intervention has been found to be effective in improving reading, however, most of the intervention studies only targeted children with reading disability (RD). However, evidence suggested that phonological deficit persists into adulthood. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the similarities and differences in the effectiveness of phonological intervention in adults with RD compared to children with RD. This study aims to explore how age modulates the effectiveness of phonological intervention in Chinese children and adults with RD, by comparing the changes of brain activity patterns and behavioral improvement. In the current study, a four-week phonological training program (total training hours = 20) was designed which focuses on enhancing phonological awareness and improving the conversion from orthography to phonology. Participants were divided into an intervention group (21 5th-grade children and 23 adults) and a waiting control group (19 5th-children and 20 adults). Behavioral performances were measured three times: including pretest, posttest and follow-up session (three-months after the intervention) to track the development patterns. Brain activity during an auditory rhyming and a visual spelling task were recorded using fMRI before and after the intervention. We found a significant time by group interaction effect in reading including reading fluency, character naming, and 1-minute character reading; phonological awareness; and rapid naming in digits and pictures, with the intervention group showing greater improvements than the control group, sustained up to three months post-intervention. However, adults and children showed a distinct improvement pattern in a 1-minute reading fluency test: although both age groups showed significant improvement from week 1 to week 3, the improvement from week 3 to week 4 was only found in adults. Adults showed more immediate improvements in 1-mintue character reading (from pre-intervention to post-intervention), while children exhibited delayed improvement in the follow-up session. Regarding brain changes, multivariate pattern analysis revealed an age by group interaction in the left IPL, driven by greater intervention effects in adults than children, suggesting greater changes in brain activation patterns in this region following intervention in adults than in children. Further investigation showed that behavioral improvements were positively correlated with activation changes in the left MTG and right FFG in adults, while in the left IFG in children, suggesting age-dependent mechanisms in response to intervention. In conclusion, even though this study confirms the efficacy of phonological intervention in Chinese adults and children with RD, it further suggests greater responsiveness in adults than children with RD.
Topic Areas: Disorders: Developmental, Reading