Syntactic and Phonological Processing in Developmental Dyslexia Judith Rispens The work in this thesis has been carried out under the auspices of the research school BCN (Behavioral and Cognitive Neurosciences) in Groningen Copyright © 2004 by Judith Rispens Printed by Print Partners Ipskamp Enschede Groningen Dissertations in Linguistics 48 ISSN 0928-0030 Rijksuniversiteit Groningen Syntactic and Phonological Processing in Developmental Dyslexia Proefschrift ter verkrijging van het doctoraat in de Letteren aan de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen op gezag van de Rector Magnificus, dr. F. Zwarts, in het openbaar te verdedigen op donderdag 10 juni 2004 om 14.45 uur door Judith Elisabeth Rispens geboren op 10 juli 1972 te Soest Promotores: Prof. dr. F. Zwarts Prof. dr. J. Hoeksema Copromotor: Dr. P.H. Been Beoordelingscommissie: Prof. dr. Y.R.M. Bastiaanse Prof. dr. A. van der Leij Prof. dr. D. Saddy Acknowledgments Many people have contributed to this thesis and I am happy to be able to thank them in this preface. First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to my ‘promotores’ and ‘co- promotor’ Frans Zwarts, Jack Hoeksema and Pieter Been for their support and interest in this thesis. I would like to especially thank Pieter Been for his supervision and generous sharing of his knowledge. Pieter, I have learned a lot from you about dyslexia, EEG’s and statistics and have appreciated your attitude on ‘problem-solving’ (‘The computer has broken down? Great, that means there is something to fix!’). I would also like to thank Roelien Bastiaanse, Aryan van der Leij and Douglas Saddy for their willingness to be part of the reading committee and for their comments which have improved this thesis. When I started this Ph.D., I became a member of the dyslexia-project that was at that time starting up. Together with Pieter Been, Charlotte Koster and Evelien Krikhaar, we have had many brain-storm sessions about various aspects of our project (from magnocells to how to warm up baby-food without a microwave). I have really enjoyed our times together in the project and I would like to thank people from the project who at different times helped with my research. Esmee, Fiona, Iris, and Mariska for assisting me in some of the test-sessions, Charlotte, Evelien and Pieter for feedback on ideas and for practical suggestions about where and how to find subjects for my experiments. Furthermore, Anouk and Monica for their practical and moral support! I would furthermore like to mention my ‘scriptie-studenten’ Susan Roeleven and Caroline Klooster who were involved in some of the experiments as part of their ‘scripties’. I have enjoyed our discussions on grammatical development in dyslexia. Also, Else Ruizeveld-de Winter and Anneke Steegstra assisted in data collection when they were working on their research project. Thanks for your help and interest. Many people have participated in the experiments that were carried out for this thesis. I am truly grateful to the students and children who were willing to take part as subjects in the experiments and to the helpful staff at various schools (de Tine Marcusschool in Groningen, de Dr. F. Hogewindschool in Rotterdam, de GSV in ii Groningen, het ABCG in Groningen, de Pius-X and de Willibrordschool in Bergschenhoek) and to the parents of the children for their friendly co-operation. I would also like to thank the members of the dyslexia-project in Amsterdam and Nijmegen and especially the members of the dyslexia-SLI group in Utrecht for their interest, discussions and fun times during conferences: Elise de Bree, Ellen Gerrits, Jan de Jong, Petra van Alphen, Frank Wijnen and Carien Wilsenach. Being part of the dyslexia-project that physically was centred in the hospital did luckily not prevent me from meeting my colleagues in the Harmonie building. Thanks to Laurie Stowe for her help in planning the EEG-experiment, and to the members of the CLCG sub-group and the acquisition lab for their feedback. Sharing an office with Esther and Laura was not only fun but also very helpful as I was able to profit from their experiences when they were working on their Ph.Ds. Thanks to all Harmonie-colleagues for their support and company during coffee and lunch-breaks (which have extended my knowledge about pre-80’s music bands greatly): Nynke, Bart, Ron, Eleonora, Dirk, Roel, Jacques, Dieuwke, Femke, Julia, Laura, Esther, Anna, Wyke, Roelien, Gerard, Claartje, Marco, Jan-Wouter, Rienk, John, Monika, Laurie, Joanneke, Sible, Liefke, Janneke, John, Tanja, Dicky, Maartje, Wander, Angeliek and Victor. I would also like to mention the people from the administration for their help: Alice, Anna, Belinda, Jolanda, Nathalie, Tineke and Wyke. Also Rob Visser for his enthusiasm about the dyslexia-project and for his creative accounting skills that have permitted me to attend various conferences abroad. I would like to thank Roelien, Ron, Jacob, Pier and Sophie for their hospitality. I have really enjoyed our Wednesday dinners with you and Gerard. Roelien and Gerard: you have made ‘expat-life’ significantly more fun! Esther and Dirk: thanks for returning the favour of being ‘paranimfen’. I am happy that you two will be by my side during my defence and that you will be wearing matching pink outfits. Finally, I would like to thank my parents and my sister for their encouragement and of course Arthur for his optimism about this thesis. Contents Chapter 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Introduction 1 1.2 Outline 3 Chapter 2 The language basis of developmental dyslexia 5 2.1 Introduction 5 2.2 Language skills in developmental dyslexia 5 2.2.1 The phonological deficit theory 5 2.2.1.1 Auditory perception 7 2.2.1.2 Verbal working memory 8 2.2.1.3 Rapid naming 11 2.2.2 Vocabulary development 11 2.2.3 Grammatical development in developmental dyslexia 13 2.3 Toward an explanation of grammatical limitations in developmental dyslexia 15 2.3.1 A delay in reading experience causes a delay in grammatical development 15 2.3.2 Grammatical limitations are epiphenomena of phonological processing problems 16 2.3.3 Grammatical limitations are independent of phonological deficits 19 2.4 Grammatical deficits in another population: developmental dyslexia compared with SLI 22 2.4.1 SLI and developmental dyslexia: two syndromes or one? 22 2.4.2 Grammatical impairment in SLI: modular or non-modular? 26 2.5 Conclusions 27 Chapter 3 Research aims and questions and some notes on subject-verb agreement 29 3.1 Research aims and questions 29 3.2 Some notes on subject-verb agreement in Dutch 32 iv Chapter 4 Investigating precursors of developmental dyslexia in kindergarten: sensitivity to subject-verb agreement, phonological awareness, rapid naming and letter knowledge 35 4.1 Introduction 35 4.2 Phonological processing as a predictor of reading success 36 4.3 Syntax as a predictor of reading success 38 4.4 Research questions 41 4.5 Methods 42 4.5.1 Subjects 42 4.5.2 Materials 43 4.5.2.1 Phonological abilities 43 4.5.2.2 Sensitivity to subject-verb agreement 44 4.5.3 Procedure and data analysis 46 4.6 Results 46 4.6.1 Phonological abilities 46 4.6.2 Grammaticality judgement task 48 4.6.2.1 Effect of violation 50 4.6.3 The results reinterpreted a year later 50 4.6.3.1 Relations between predictors of reading success 51 4.7 Discussion 52 4.8 Conclusions 55 Appendices 57 Chapter 5 Sensitivity to subject-verb agreement, phonological processing and literacy skills in children with language impairments 61 5.1 Introduction 61 5.2 Study 1 61 5.2.1 Introduction 61 5.2.2 Research questions 63 5.2.3 Method 63 5.2.3.1 Subjects 63 5.2.3.2 Materials 65 5.2.3.3 Procedure and data analysis 69 5.2.4 Results 71 v 5.2.4.1 Reading tasks 71 5.2.4.2 Grammaticality judgement task 72 5.2.4.2.1 Effect of violation 73 5.2.4.2.2 Spontaneous speech 73 5.2.5 Discussion 75 5.3 Study 2 75 5.3.1 Introduction 75 5.3.2 Two opposing views on morphosyntactic deficits in SLI 80 5.3.3 Dyslexia and SLI: is there a difference? 84 5.3.4 Research questions 84 5.4 Method 85 5.4.1 Subjects 85 5.4.2 Materials 86 5.4.2.1 Grammaticality judgement task 86 5.4.2.2 Reading tasks 86 5.4.2.3 Phonological tasks 86 5.4.3 Procedure and data analysis 89 5.4.4 Results 90 5.4.4.1 Grammaticality judgement task 90 5.4.4.2 Results of reading tasks 92 5.4.4.3 Results of phonological tasks 92 5.4.5 Relationships between morphosyntax, phonological processing and literacy 95 5.4.5.1 Predictors of word decoding ability 96 5.4.5.2 Predictors of sensitivity to subject-verb agreement 97 5.4.5.3 Non-word repetition and morphosyntactic ability 98 5.4.6 Discussion 99 5.4.7 Conclusions 107 Appendices 108 vi Chapter 6 Brain responses of dyslexic adults to syntactic violations in spoken language: An ERP study 113 6.1 Introduction 113 6.1.1 Event-related brain potentials 113 6.1.2 ERPs in developmental dyslexia 116 6.1.3 Goals of present study 117 6.2 Methods 118 6.2.1 Subjects 118 6.2.2 Materials 119 6.2.3 Procedure 121 6.2.4 EEG-recording 122 6.2.5 Data analysis 123 6.2.5.1 Behavioural data 123 6.2.5.2 ERP data 123 6.3 Results 124 6.3.1 Behavioural data 124 6.3.2 The ERP data 124 6.3.2.1 Phrase structure violations 124 6.3.2.2 Subject-verb agreement violations 128 6.3.2.3 Peak latency 138 6.4 Discussion 139 6.4.1 ELAN 139 6.4.2 P600 140 6.5 Conclusions 144 Appendices 145 Chapter 7 Summary and conclusions 155 References 163 Samenvatting 175 Chapter 1 General introduction 1.1 Introduction In modern society, a tremendous amount of information exchange makes use of some form of written language.