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Reading speed test for potential central vision measurement.

This study examines the validity and reliability of a reading speed test as a measure of potential central vision. Reading speed was calculated in words per minute (wpm) from the time taken to read 30 words of 1.20 logMAR size text. Scores were obtained from subjects with cataract (n = 48), macular disease(n = 35), peripheral vision loss(n = 14) and normal eyes (n = 10). Subjects with macular disease (27.0 +/- 13.2 wpm) read much slower than subjects with cataract (91.9 +/- 13.6 wpm). Little difference was found between subjects with cataract, peripheral vision loss (91.5 +/- 14.7 wpm)and normal eyes (103.8 +/- 15.5 wpm). Repeat testing gave values within +/- 16% of reading speed. These results suggest that a reading speed test using large text could be useful as a potential central vision test in cataract patients.

Aged↗

Predicting the continued use of overlays in school children--a comparison of the Developmental Eye Movement test and the Rate of Reading test.

Coloured overlays have been advocated to enhance reading speed and ability in children with reading difficulty or dyslexia. Assessing the efficacy of overlays has to date been largely subjective. Objective assessment is presently carried out with the Rate of Reading test (RRT), where an increase in reading speed of more than 5% is considered to indicate a positive prognosis for continued use of the overlay. The Developmental Eye Movement (DEM) test is used to assess horizontal scanning behaviour in a number naming task. In this study both tests were utilised to determine whether coloured overlays could enhance reading performance or scanning. This article shows that for some children rate of reading is not improved with coloured overlays although performance on the DEM test does improve. Improvements to the DEM scores occurred in 88% of children who continued to use overlays for more than 3 months. This compared with 60% sensitivity in the RRT. The possible reasons for this phenomenon and the clinical implications are discussed.

Audiovisual Aids↗

Do blood donors read and understand screening educational materials?

BACKGROUND: Blood donors with high-risk behaviors may not self-defer because they failed to read or understand the screening educational materials. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: In 1993, a total of 34,726 allogeneic donors responded to an anonymous mail survey of 50,162 donors that inquired about demographics, donor status, amount of the donor educational materials read, new HIV knowledge gained, and donors' opinions on the length and difficulty of materials. RESULTS: Although 78 percent reported reading all materials, only 32 percent indicated reading carefully; 34 percent learned new information about HIV and 95 percent perceived the materials as easy to understand. First-time donors were more likely to read carefully (OR, 7.9) and gain more HIV knowledge from the materials (OR, 1.9) than repeat donors. Minority, less educated, screening test-reactive, and HIV test-seeking donors reported reading the materials more carefully and learning more about HIV than their respective counterparts. Donors with less education, those with reactive screening tests, those seeking HIV test results, and those not reporting a risk behavior were more likely to find the materials difficult to understand. CONCLUSION: Most donors reported skimming and not having difficulty understanding the educational materials. Some donors may be aware that they should not donate or are failing to assimilate the information in the materials. Methods to present information more clearly and concisely are clearly needed. However, some high-risk donors may still continue donating no matter how improved the educational materials are.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗

The prevention and identification of reading disability.

There is abundant evidence that intervention for the prevention of reading disability is effective in dramatically reducing the prevalence of reading disability. This article explores the current state of knowledge regarding the causation and prevalence of reading disability, along with evidence that the incidence of this condition can be dramatically reduced through quality intervention. Specifically, we (1) explore what is known about the nature and causes of reading disability, (2) examine how reading disability can best be identified, and (3) estimate the percentage of children that have severe reading difficulties that indicate the true presence of a disability.

Child↗

A translation-attenuating intraleader open reading frame is selected on coronavirus mRNAs during persistent infection.

Short open reading frames within the 5' leader of some eukaryotic mRNAs are known to regulate the rate of translation initiation on the downstream open reading frame. By employing the polymerase chain reaction, we learned that the 5'-terminal 5 nt on the common leader sequence of bovine coronavirus subgenomic mRNAs were heterogeneous and hypervariable throughout early infection in cell culture and that as a persistent infection became established, termini giving rise to a common 33-nt intraleader open reading frame were selected. Since the common leader is derived from the genomic 5' end during transcription, a common focus of origin for the heterogeneity is expected. The intraleader open reading frame was shown by in vitro translation studies to attenuate translation of downstream open reading frames in a cloned bovine coronavirus mRNA molecule. Selection of an intraleader open reading frame resulting in a general attenuation of mRNA translation and a consequent attenuation of virus replication may, therefore, be a mechanism by which coronaviruses and possibly other RNA viruses with a similar transcriptional strategy maintain a persistent infection.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

Neuroimaging studies of word reading.

This review discusses how neuroimaging can contribute to our understanding of a fundamental aspect of skilled reading: the ability to pronounce a visually presented word. One contribution of neuroimaging is that it provides a tool for localizing brain regions that are active during word reading. To assess the extent to which similar results are obtained across studies, a quantitative review of nine neuroimaging investigations of word reading was conducted. Across these studies, the results converge to reveal a set of areas active during word reading, including left-lateralized regions in occipital and occipitotemporal cortex, the left frontal operculum, bilateral regions within the cerebellum, primary motor cortex, and the superior and middle temporal cortex, and medial regions in the supplementary motor area and anterior cingulate. Beyond localization, the challenge is to use neuroimaging as a tool for understanding how reading is accomplished. Central to this challenge will be the integration of neuroimaging results with information from other methodologies. To illustrate this point, this review will highlight the importance of spelling-to-sound consistency in the transformation from orthographic (word form) to phonological (word sound) representations, and then explore results from three neuroimaging studies in which the spelling-to-sound consistency of the stimuli was deliberately varied. Emphasis is placed on the pattern of activation observed within the left frontal cortex, because the results provide an example of the issues and benefits involved in relating neuroimaging results to behavioral results in normal and brain damaged subjects, and to theoretical models of reading.

Brain↗

Reading-frame restoration by transcriptional slippage at long stretches of adenine residues in mammalian cells.

We previously characterized a mutant apoB allele (the apoB86 allele) that produces both a truncated apoB (apoB86) and a full-length apoB100. The mutant allele contained a deletion of a single cytosine in exon 26, creating a stretch of eight consecutive adenines in the -1 reading frame. The altered reading-frame allele was restored, with approximately 10% efficiency, by the transcriptional insertion of an extra adenine into the stretch of eight consecutive adenines, thereby accounting for the synthesis of the full-length apoB100. Here, we demonstrate that this reading-frame restoration does not occur when the long stretch of adenines is interrupted by a cytosine. To assess whether reading-frame restoration is unique to a single site in the apoB gene, the same mutation (eight consecutive adenines in the -1 reading frame) was inserted into another site within the apoB gene. Reading-frame restoration occurred at the second site and was abrogated when the stretch of adenines was interrupted by another base. Of note, a computerized analysis of human cDNA sequences revealed that long stretches of adenines in protein-coding sequences occur at a lower than predicted frequency, suggesting that evolution has selected against these sequences.

Adenine↗

Digital measurement of torsional eye movement due to postural change and its effect on reading performance.

PURPOSE: Posture induced torsional eye movements have rarely been investigated. The current study made use of digital imaging technology to measure the cycloduction resulting from postural change. The effect of cycloduction on reading performance was also investigated. METHODS: Thirty subjects were recruited and pictures of the right eye were captured using a digital camera at three postures, i.e. sitting, 90 degrees tilted to the right and 90 degrees tilted to the left. With the identification of a conjunctival landmark, torsional eye movement was measured. The subjects were then required to read a custom designed near chart while in those three postures, the reading card being rotated 90 degrees clockwise or 90 degrees anti-clockwise, to match with the tilting of the head. The reproducibility of the torsional eye movement and reading performance measure was determined in 12 of those 30 subjects. RESULTS: Incycloduction was induced when tilting to the right and excycloduction when tilting to the left. This method was found to be reproducible with the 95% confidence limits of 0.80 degrees between visits. The mean incycloduction induced was 6.50 degrees (SD 1.51 degrees ) and 6.41 degrees (SD 1.46 degrees ) for excycloduction. No significant difference in amount was demonstrated (paired t-test: t = 0.624, P = 0.538). No significant difference was found in the reading scores at various postures (Repeated measures ANOVA: df = 2, F = 1.881, P = 0.162). CONCLUSIONS: The results presented here demonstrate that we have developed an objective and instantaneous method with good precision, which could be applied in other studies that require the measurement of torsional eye movements. The induced cycloduction did not affect the reading performance.

Adolescent↗

Failure to inhibit the reading response on the Stroop Test: a pathognomonic indicator of suspect effort.

We present 6 patients who displayed noncredible effort on neuropsychological testing (verified by failures on specialized measures designed to discreetly assess effort status and multiple behavioral inconsistencies) and complained of complete illiteracy secondary to impoverished educational history, learning disability, or acquired brain injury. The Stroop Test, a measure of a specific aspect of executive function requiring inhibition of an automatized oral reading response in favor of a less habitual, competing color-naming response, was administered to these patients. All six subjects claimed that they were unable to perform the Word-Reading trial as a consequence of total reading disability, but on the Color-Word Interference trial, they all committed "errors" by reading the written words. Five of the six subjects also performed substantially slower on the Interference condition relative to the Color-Naming trial, indicating that they were in fact inhibiting a reading response. However, in cases involving complaints of complete reading illiteracy, the observation of these individuals performing an act that they claimed to be unable to do was the most powerful and pathognomonic indicator of deliberate feigning or exaggeration of impairment in these cases.

Adult↗

Non-word reading, lexical retrieval and stuttering: comments on Packman, Onslow, Coombes and Goodwin (2001).

A recent study by Packman, Onslow, Coombes and Goodwin (2001) employed a non-word-reading paradigm to test the contribution of the lexical retrieval process to stuttering. They consider that, with this material, the lexical retrieval process could not contribute to stuttering and that either anxiety and/or the motor demand of reading are the governing factors. This paper will discuss possible processes underlying non-word reading and it argues that the conclusion arrived at by Packman et al. does not stand up to close scrutiny. In their introduction, the authors acknowledge that the lexicalization process involves retrieval and encoding of words. In a non-word-reading task, the word retrieval component is eliminated. The possibility that the encoding component of the lexicalization process leads to stuttering is, however, completely ignored by the authors when they attribute stuttering to motor demands. As theories put forward by Postma and Kolk (the Covert Repair Hypothesis, 1993) and Howell and Au-Yeung (the EXPLAN theory, 2002) argue heavily for the role of the phonological encoding processes in stuttering, Packman et al.'s work does not evaluate such theories. Theoretical issues aside, Packman et al.'s arguments about reading rate and stuttering rate based on reading time is also questionable.

Humans↗

Reading versus comprehension: implications for patient education and consent in an outpatient oncology clinic.

Written educational materials and consent forms are often given to patients with little regard for their ability to read them. Nationwide sampling and data from the 1990 census suggest that 10% of U.S. adults are functionally illiterate. In this study, 100 adult patients (64 female, 36 male) seen consecutively in an oncology clinic were tested for reading vocabulary (RD-VOCAB) and reading comprehension (RD-COMP) using the Woodcock-Johnson Psychoeducational Battery. The mean grade levels of education (last grade completed), reading vocabulary, and reading comprehension of all participants were 12.5, 11.3, and 10.5, respectively. The discrepancy between the grade level of education and RD-COMP varied by age, the largest discrepancies being found in the 30-39 (three grades) and 60-69 (2 1/2 grades) age groups. After controlling for educational level, it was found that the mean grade level of RD-COMP was statistically lower than educational level. Statistically assuming all subjects to have completed high school, the mean levels of RD-COMP ranged from ninth grade in the 30-39 age group to twelfth grade in the 40-49 age group. This study underscores the fact that the health professional cannot assume that a patient who has completed a certain grade level in school can read at the corresponding level. Consent forms and other health education materials should be written at least three grade levels lower than the average educational level of the target population.

Adolescent↗

Lateral and central presentation of words with limited exposure duration as remedial training for reading disabled children.

In two studies it is examined whether lateral presentation of words in remedial practice for reading disabled children has additional effects to central presentation. The effect of limited exposure duration (LED) is also studied as a possible factor in inducing higher level decoding processes or increased processing speed of words. Two groups of Dutch reading disabled children (n1 = 25, mean age = 9;8 years and n2 = 36, mean age = 7;1 years) repeatedly practiced reading words presented in the left, right or the central visual field. The results show that all children improved substantially both in reading speed and accuracy, which demonstrates the importance of repetitive practice in reading to attain fluency in reading disabled children. Further analysis demonstrated that neither site of presentation nor limited exposure duration added significantly to the training results. These findings do not corroborate neuropsychological theories suggesting a special role for lateral presentations.

Child↗

A small-to-large unit progression in metaphonological awareness and reading?

The paper reports a series of studies of reading and metaphonological processing by children in their second year in primary school (aged 6 years). An earlier study had established that, in the first year of learning, performance was characterized by a small-unit approach in which graphemes and phonemes were emphasized. In the second year, reading became more sensitive to the frequencies of rime structures in the lexicon. Capacity to generate word analogies for nonwords also showed increasing commitment to rime-based responses, and this trend was strongly linked to reading age. The present results suggest that a small-unit approach to reading is augmented by a large-unit approach as development proceeds. This trend was reflected in performance on a test of explicit phonological awareness. When asked to report the segment of sound shared by two spoken words, Primary 1 children were poor in reporting shared rimes but relatively adept in reporting shared phonemes. During Primary 2 there was an improvement in ability to report shared rimes, and this trend was also related to reading age. These results are discussed in relation to the influence of instruction and the nature of the orthography in determining the course of reading development.

Association Learning↗

Plasticity of the sensorimotor cortex representation of the reading finger in Braille readers.

We studied the organization of the somatosensory cortex in proficient Braille readers, recording somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs) in 10 subjects and using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in five subjects, and compared the results with those of 15 control subjects. Somatosensory evoked potentials were elicited by a focal electrical stimulus to the tip of the index finger and recorded from a contralateral 4 x 4 grid of scalp electrodes centred around C3' and C4'. Transcranial magnetic stimulation, with an 8-shaped coil centred over the same scalp positions, was delivered simultaneously with, and at different intervals after, the finger stimulus. The results of the right index (reading) finger in Braille readers were compared with those of their left index (non-reading) finger and of the right and left index fingers of the control subjects. The scalp areas from which we recorded N20 and P22 components of the SEP with an amplitude of at least 70% of the maximal amplitude recorded in each trial were significantly larger in SEPs evoked from the reading fingers. Detection of the stimulus applied to the reading finger was blocked by TMS delivered over a larger contralateral scalp area and during a longer time window after the stimulus. These experiments suggest that reading Braille is associated with expansion of the sensorimotor cortical representation of the reading finger.

Adult↗

Individual differences in anatomy predict reading and oral language impairments in children.

Developmental dyslexia (DD) and specific language impairment (SLI) are disorders of language that differ in diagnostic criteria and outcome. DD is defined by isolated reading deficits. SLI is defined by poor receptive and expressive oral language skills. Reading deficits, although prevalent, are not necessary for the diagnosis of SLI. An enduring question is whether these two disorders are qualitatively different or simply differ quantitatively along a dimension of severity. Here we address this problem by examining neuroanatomical correlates of reading and language in children with learning disabilities. We asked whether a quantitative anatomical risk index derived from previous work could predict behavioural profiles in a heterogeneous sample of 14 boys and 8 girls (11-16 years of age) with reading and language impairments. The results confirmed our predictions that (i) children with relatively smaller and symmetrical brain structures (negative risk indices) would have the severe comprehension impairments typical of SLI; (ii) children with larger, asymmetrical brain structures (positive risk indices) would have poor word reading in the presence of relatively preserved comprehension, a profile typical of DD; and (iii) the best performance would be seen in children with anatomical risk indices near zero (normal anatomy). Also, in confirmation of previous work, rapid automatic naming was not predicted by the anatomical risk index, but by anatomical measures derived from the frontal lobes. These results highlight the key significance of comprehension deficits in distinguishing DD from SLI. Reading impaired children with and without comprehension deficits appear to occupy neuroanatomical domains on the opposite sides of normal.

Adolescent↗

Concurrent correlates and predictors of reading and spelling achievement in deaf and hearing school children.

Seven- and eight-year-old deaf children and hearing children of equivalent reading age were presented with a number of tasks designed to assess reading, spelling, productive vocabulary, speechreading, phonological awareness, short-term memory, and nonverbal intelligence. The two groups were compared for similarities and differences in the levels of performance and in the predictors of literacy. Multiple regressions showed that both productive vocabulary and speechreading were significant predictors of reading for the deaf children after hearing loss and nonverbal intelligence had been accounted for. However, spelling ability was not associated with any of the other measures apart from reading. For hearing children, age was the main determinant of reading and spelling ability (due to selection criterion). Possible explanations for the role of speechreading and productive vocabulary in deaf children's reading and the differences between the correlates of literacy for deaf and hearing children are discussed.

Analysis of Variance↗

Psychophysics of reading--X. Effects of age-related changes in vision.

This study examined the influence of age-related changes in vision on reading performance. Maximum reading speed was measured in groups of young (n = 16, mean age 21.6 years) and old (n = 14, mean age 68.3 years) subjects, all with acuities of 20/32 or better. A psychophysical procedure was used for measuring reading speed that has proven reliable and sensitive to visual factors in previous research. Data were collected for character sizes ranging from .15 degrees to 12 degrees. Research revealed that old subjects who were free of eye disease read as fast as the young subjects for character sizes ranging from .3 degrees to 1.0 degrees. This is the range in which reading speed is maximum for young subjects. Research also revealed that old subjects showed a deficit when reading text composed of very small or very large characters. Their speeds dropped to about 70% of the young adult speeds. These deficits may be due to age-related losses in visual contrast sensitivity.

Adult↗

Adults' reading comprehension: effects of syntactic complexity and working memory.

Two experiments investigated the relationship between working memory and reading comprehension. In the first, college students, 18 to 26 years of age, and adults, 60 to 92 years of age, were given a battery of tests of working memory, a standard timed reading comprehension test, and a reading test designed to explore how syntactic complexity affects comprehension. In a follow-up study, the adults were retested on a modified version of the syntax comprehension text. Age group declines in working memory and reading comprehension were obtained in Experiment I; age group declines in reading rate but not comprehension were obtained in Experiment II. The results suggest that working memory limitations affect elderly adults' ability to process complex syntactic constructions, lowering comprehension in the timed test (Experiment I) and reducing reading rates in the untimed test (Experiment II).

Adolescent↗