Visual attention span and phonological skills in Chinese developmental dyslexia

It has been debated whether visual attention span deficit was independent from phonological deficit in alphabetic developmental dyslexia. Yet, this issue has never been examined in Chinese developmental dyslexia.

The aim of the present study was to concurrently investigate visual attention span deficit and phonological deficit in Chinese developmental dyslexia, and examine the relationship between them.

A total of 45 Chinese dyslexic and 43 control children aged between 8 and 11 years old participated in this study. A visual one-back paradigm with both verbal stimuli (character and digit strings) and nonverbal stimuli (color dots and symbols) was employed for measuring visual attention span. Phonological skills were measured by three dimensions: phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, and verbal short-term memory.

Chinese dyslexic children showed deficits in verbal visual attention span and all three dimensions of phonological skills, but not in nonverbal visual attention span. Phonological skills significantly contributed to explaining variance of reading skills and classifying dyslexic and control memberships. Almost all Chinese dyslexic participants who showed a deficit in visual attention span also showed a phonological deficit.

The study suggests that visual attention span deficit is not independent from phonological deficit in Chinese developmental dyslexia.