A multidimensional-bilevel approach on Chinese spelling analysis: Unveiling cognitive behavioural spelling patterns in Chinese children with and without dyslexia

Abstract

Purpose: Despite increasing efforts have been devoted to spelling development in Chinese children, relatively little attention has paid to spelling patterns in both typically-developing children and children with developmental dyslexia. In our study, a more fine-grained multidimensional-bilevel approach was used to probe into orthography, phonology, and semantics simultaneously from a holistic character level to an analytical component level in different grades of Chinese children with and without developmental dyslexia to reveal their cognitive behavioural spelling patterns. Method: 120 Hong Kong Chinese Grade 3-5 children with developmental dyslexia, 120 chronological age matched controls, and 120 reading age matched controls completed a Chinese word spelling test adopted an there other Chinese reading-related tasks. Results: The multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) showed significant differences in all the three dimensions (i.e. orthography, phonology, and semantics) among typically-developing children from a lower elementary level to a higher elementary level. Significant difference in the relative use orthographic, phonological, and semantic strategies were also found between children with dyslexia and two control groups. In particular, children with dyslexia consistently rely more on phonological strategies than the two control groups. Conclusions: These findings provide evidence on a modified model of Chinese orthographic knowledge development which emphasizes the role of statistical learning and sub-character processing across orthography, phonology and semantics. Also, these findings offer a new insight for researchers and practitioners on identification of children at risk of reading difficulties by using the multidimensional-bilevel approach on Chinese spelling analysis.