Cassandra Goh
Pronouns: she/her
Research Mentor(s): Ioulia Kovelman
Co-Presenter: Huang, Mindy
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Psychology and CHGD / LSA
Presentation Date: April 20
Presentation Type: Poster
Session: Session 4 – 2:40pm – 3:30 pm
Room: League Ballroom
Authors: Cassandra Goh, Mindy Huang, Ke Hui Zhang, Chi-Lin Yu
Presenter: 22
Abstract
Dyslexia is a learning disability that results in reading difficulties, which has now affected 5% – 12% children in the world with adverse effects like reduced educational opportunities and low academic self-esteem (Norton et al., 2015). Recent studies have focused on establishing the relationship between dyslexia and morphological awareness, which has been found to be a significant predictor of children’s reading comprehension abilities (Tighe and Binder, p. 248). According to Casalis et al., “Morphology refers to an organizational level of language that deals with the smallest units of meaning: the morphemes†(115). For instance, the meaning of the word “indistinguishable†combines the meaning of the three morphemes: “inâ€, “distinguishâ€, “ableâ€. Research has found high correlation between the level of morphological awareness and reading abilities and comprehension, but the relationship was not established as the difference in reading level among dyslexic and non-dyslexic children varies with the reading tasks assigned to them (Casalis et al., 2004). To address these issues, the present study aims to examine whether and how children with dyslexia differ from typical developing children in morphological awareness. We asked subjects to complete behavioral tasks and a morphological awareness task while their brains were scanned by a functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) neuroimaging machine. We will first test if there is any difference between children with dyslexia and typically developing children in terms of their behavioral performances, and then compare brain activation differences in key perisylvian language regions between the two groups. In particular, we will focus on significant brain parts that reflect subjects’ linguistic competence, which are inferior frontal gyrus, middle temporal gyrus and superior temporal gyrus in the left hemisphere. Results from this project will provide theoretical insight into the underlying mechanism of dyslexia.
Interdisciplinary, Social Sciences
