Second language learning difficulties in developmental dyslexia: What are the cognitive-linguistic skills that influence English reading among Chinese dyslexic adolescent readers?

This study investigated the relations between cognitive-linguistic skills and reading of Hong Kong Chinese-speaking adolescent readers with dyslexia learning English as a second language (ESL), as they learn both Chinese and English language beginning at the age of three. A total of 54 adolescent readers, 27 with dyslexia and 27 chronological age (CA) controls participated and were administered measures of Chinese word reading, English word reading, English reading comprehension, English phonological skills, English morphological skills, English visual-orthographic and English syntactic skills. Results showed that the dyslexic readers performed significantly worse than the CA in all cognitive-linguistic and reading measures. In addition, hierarchical regression analyses indicated that four cognitive-linguistic measures significantly predicted English word reading and reading comprehension. These findings have implications for understanding the reading of Chinese dyslexic adolescent readers, and the nature of reading English as a second language in general. Copyright © 2013 Society for the Scientific Studies of Reading (SSSR).