title: Dyslexic and skilled reading dynamics are self-similar.
abstract: The shape of a word pronunciation time distribution supplies information about the dynamic interactions that support reading performance. Speeded word-naming pronunciation and response time distributions were collected from 20 sixth grade Dutch students with dyslexia and 23 age-matched controls. The participants' pronunciation times were modeled and contrasted with a lognormal inverse power-law mixture distribution. Identical contrasts were also conducted on the same participants' response time distributions derived from flanker, color-naming, and arithmetic tasks. Results indicated that children with dyslexia yield slower, broader, and more variable pronunciation time distributions than their age-matched counterparts. This difference approximated a self-similar rescaling between the two group's aggregate pronunciation time distributions. Moreover, children with dyslexia produced similar, but less prominent trends toward slower and more variable performance across the three non-reading tasks. The outcomes support a proportional continuum rather than a localized deficit account of dyslexia. The mixture distribution's success at describing the participants' pronunciation and response time distributions suggests that differences in proportional contingencies among low-level neurophysiological, perceptual, and cognitive processes likely play a prominent role in the etiology of dyslexia.
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Cincinnati, PO Box 210376, Cincinnati, OH, 45221-0376, USA, john.holden@uc.edu.
authors: John G
authors: JG
authors: Holden
authors: Lieke T
authors: LT
authors: Greijn
authors: Marieke M J W
authors: MM
authors: van Rooij
authors: Maarten L
authors: ML
authors: Wijnants
authors: Anna M T
authors: AM
authors: Bosman
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D004410:Dyslexia / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007807:Language Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008297:Male; D009426:Netherlands; D010700:Phonetics; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D011932:Reading