Schedule of Events | Symposia

Exploring the Neural Mechanisms of Phonological Awareness in Chinese Children with Potential Reading Disabilities

Poster Session E - Monday, March 31, 2025, 2:30 – 4:30 pm EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Yueh-Lin Li¹, Hsin-Chin Chen², Li-Ying Fan³, Shiou-Yuan Chen⁴, Tai-Li Chou¹; ¹Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University, Taiwan, ²Department of Psychology, National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan, ³Department of Education, National Taipei University of Education, Taiwan, ⁴Department of Early Childhood Education, University of Taipei, Taiwan

Chinese reading comprehension relies on multiple factors, with morphological awareness and reading fluency being particularly critical, especially for children with dyslexia. Phonological awareness also plays a key role in reading comprehension; however, its specific contribution to Chinese-speaking children with dyslexia remains a subject of debate. This study investigates the differential roles of phonological awareness in children with potential reading disabilities and their typically developing peers when learning Chinese. We utilized functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to examine key differences in the neural mechanisms underlying phonological awareness between two groups. Thirty Chinese-speaking children participated, including eighteen typically developing children (mean age = 9.97 years; average Chinese character recognition percentile = 90.42) and twelve children with potential reading disabilities (mean age = 8.47 years; average Chinese character recognition percentile = 60.00). Neural activation patterns during a Chinese phonological awareness task were compared between these two groups. The findings revealed that typically developing children tended to engage more right-hemispheric brain regions during Chinese phonological awareness tasks, including the right superior temporal gyrus (STG) and dorsal inferior frontal gyrus. In contrast, children with potential reading disabilities showed a greater reliance on left-hemispheric brain regions, such as the left STG and inferior parietal lobe. Moreover, typically developing children were more inclined to activate right-hemispheric regions relative to their counterparts in Chinese. These findings reveal distinct roles of phonological awareness in children with different reading abilities and highlight the significant association between right-hemispheric activation and phonological awareness in Chinese during early-stage language development.

Topic Area: LANGUAGE: Development & aging