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SUMMARY:Timing in dyslexia: Language\, reading and writing - Professor Mar
 ia Teresa Guasti (University of Milano-Bicocca)
DTSTART:20181115T170000Z
DTEND:20181115T183000Z
UID:TALK113998@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Yixin Zhang
DESCRIPTION:Languages have a rhythmic structure\, have (morpho)syntax and 
 the two are somehow related. Why? In this paper\, we attempt to provide an
  answer to this question based on experimental evidence from language impa
 ired individuals and controls. Briefly\, our answer is that rhythm and syn
 tax allow humans to generate predictions concerning the incoming input. In
  turn\, this ability reduces memory load through the pre-activation of the
  sensory system and allows one to anticipate abstract representations.\n\n
 In Pagliarini et al. (2015)\, we showed that children with Developmental D
 yslexia (DD) fail to comply with two rhythmic principles of the handwritin
 g: (1) The principle of isochrony (Binet & Courtier\, 1893\; Stetson & McD
 ill\, 1923\; Viviani & Terzuolo\, 1982) which states “that the speed of 
 movement execution is proportionally related to the length of its trajecto
 ry in order to keep the movement duration approximately constant” and (2
 ) “The principle of homothety (Lashley\, 1951\; Viviani & Terzuolo\, 198
 2)\, which guarantees the invariance of the relative duration of a movemen
 t’s components under a number of possible variations in the duration of 
 the very same movement. While typically developing (TD) children were able
  to maintain the same global and relative duration constant across conditi
 ons\, children with DD varied\,as shown in figure 1.\n\nhttps://camlingsoc
 .files.wordpress.com/2018/10/e59bbee78987-1.png\n Figure 1\n\n We also fou
 nd that the ability to satisfy the two rhythmic principles of handwriting 
 is correlated with reading measures\, non-word repetition. In Pagliarini e
 t al. (2017)\, we showed that TD children from grade 1 are able to comply 
 with the two rhythmic principles of handwriting. This suggests that their 
 acquisition does not require a lot of training. This fact also allow us to
  discard the hypothesis that the weakness of children with DD is not due t
 o lack of practice\, as younger children with little practice have no prob
 lem. The two studies together suggest that children with DD have problems 
 with the temporal organization of events\, with rhythm. Rhythm is useful t
 o predict future events. Then\, we expect that children and adults with DD
  have problems in anticipating future events. To test this hypothesis\, we
  carried out an experimentwith 18 adults with DD along with 20 controls. W
 e engaged  participants in a task requiring entrainment to a given rhythm 
 and tapping in synchrony with a beat. We found a significant group differe
 nce in the predictable condition. Controls were synchronous or anticipate 
 the beat\, whereas participants with DD display a tendency of tapping afte
 r the occurrence of the beat. In the unpredictable condition\, Group was n
 ot significant\, as participants from both groups responded in response to
  the beat (i.e. reaction time). Interestingly\, participants with good pre
 dictive skills were also faster in reading. These results are in line with
  another finding from the literature provided by Huetting & Brouwer (2015)
 . These authors engaged adults Dutch individuals with DD in an eye-trackin
 g experiment measuring whether they were able to predict an object based o
 n morphosyntactic features of the article. Shorter latency were observed i
 n controls than in adults with DD. Persici & Arosio (in prep) replicated t
 his finding with Italian children with DD. In conclusion\, languages displ
 ay a rhythmic structure that allows individuals to predict incoming lingui
 stic events\; similar\, morphosyntactic features are used to anticipate th
 e incoming structure and generate an abstract representation used to accom
 modate the input. Individuals with DD have problems in predicting or in ex
 tracting regularities.\n
LOCATION:GR06/07\, Faculty of English\, 9 West Rd (Sidgwick Site)
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