[senco-forum] Why do Italians with dyslexia have an inbuilt advantage compared with English children?

Professor Diane McGuinness has commented on the Goswami article here: 

http://www.rrf.org.uk/messageforum/viewtopic.php?t=2999,

and there is discussion of it on the RRF board, here:

http://rrf.org.uk/messageforum/viewtopic.php?t=2995

Just in case anyone is interested in an alternative view.

Maggie

On 8/18/07, Jean Hutchins  wrote:
>
> Times Educational Supplement. Friday 17 August, 2007.  Magazine. Pages 24
> & 25.
>
> brain & behaviour.
> The language barrier.
>
> Why do Italians with dyslexia have an inbuilt advantage compared with
> English
> children?
> Usha Goswami explains.
>
> The neural inefficiencies which result in dyslexia are shared across
> languages,
> with a similar prevalence of 5 to 7 per cent. Dyslexics in Chinese, French
> and
> Italian show similar characteristics. Nevertheless, its manifestation
> differs
> according to language. This is because of syllable structure and spelling
> systems.
>
> Children with dyslexia learning to read languages such as Italian and
> Greek are
> best off developmentally. Syllable structure is simple: mostly
> consonant-vowel
> pairings, as in mama. There is a consistent, one-to-one correspondence
> between
> letters and sounds. In these languages, dyslexics show slow, effortful but
> accurate reading and poor spelling.
>
> Children with dyslexia find it more difficult learning to read in
> languages such
> as English. The syllable structure is complex. Correspondence between
> letters
> and sounds is inconsistent (for instance, "a" makes a different sound in
> make,
> man, mark and mall). English dyslexic children show inaccurate reading,
> slow
> decoding and poor spelling characteristic of dyslexia in other languages.
>
> Usha Goswami is Professor of Education and director of the Centre for
> Neuroscience in Education at the University of Cambridge.
>
> Jean
> -----------------------------------------
> Jean Hutchins, SE Surrey DA.
> RSA Dip SpLD, AMBDA, retired.
> E-mail: jeanhutchins1 at ntlworld.com
> British Dyslexia Association Web: www.bdadyslexia.org.uk
> Also into spelling reform: www.simplifiedspelling.org
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>

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