TY - JOUR
T1 - Attentional engagement deficits in dyslexic children
AU - Ruffino, Milena
AU - Trussardi, Anna Noemi
AU - Gori, Simone
AU - Finzi, Alessandra
AU - Giovagnoli, Sara
AU - Menghini, Deny
AU - Benassi, Mariagrazia
AU - Molteni, Massimo
AU - Bolzani, Roberto
AU - Vicari, Stefano
AU - Facoetti, Andrea
PY - 2010/11
Y1 - 2010/11
N2 - Reading acquisition requires, in addition to appropriate phonological abilities, accurate and rapid selection of sublexical orthographic units by attentional letter string parsing. Spatio-temporal distribution of attentional engagement onto 3-pseudoletter strings was studied in 28 dyslexic and 55 normally reading children by measuring attentional masking (AM). AM refers to an impaired identification of the first of two sequentially presented masked objects (O1 and O2). In the present study, O1 was always centrally displayed, whereas the location of O2 (central or lateral) and the O1-O2 interval were manipulated. Dyslexic children showed a larger AM at the shortest O1-O2 interval and a sluggish AM recovery at the longest O1-O2 interval, as well as an abnormal lateral AM. More importantly, these spatio-temporal deficits of attentional engagement were selectively present in dyslexics with poor phonological decoding skills. Our results suggest that an inefficient spatio-temporal distribution of attentional engagement - probably linked to a parietal lobule dysfunction - might selectively impair the letter string parsing mechanism during phonological decoding.
AB - Reading acquisition requires, in addition to appropriate phonological abilities, accurate and rapid selection of sublexical orthographic units by attentional letter string parsing. Spatio-temporal distribution of attentional engagement onto 3-pseudoletter strings was studied in 28 dyslexic and 55 normally reading children by measuring attentional masking (AM). AM refers to an impaired identification of the first of two sequentially presented masked objects (O1 and O2). In the present study, O1 was always centrally displayed, whereas the location of O2 (central or lateral) and the O1-O2 interval were manipulated. Dyslexic children showed a larger AM at the shortest O1-O2 interval and a sluggish AM recovery at the longest O1-O2 interval, as well as an abnormal lateral AM. More importantly, these spatio-temporal deficits of attentional engagement were selectively present in dyslexics with poor phonological decoding skills. Our results suggest that an inefficient spatio-temporal distribution of attentional engagement - probably linked to a parietal lobule dysfunction - might selectively impair the letter string parsing mechanism during phonological decoding.
KW - Graphemic parsing
KW - Reading disorders
KW - Spatio-temporal attention
KW - Sublexical route
KW - Temporo-parietal junction
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=78149413119&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=78149413119&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2010.09.002
DO - 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2010.09.002
M3 - Article
C2 - 20833191
AN - SCOPUS:78149413119
VL - 48
SP - 3793
EP - 3801
JO - Neuropsychologia
JF - Neuropsychologia
SN - 0028-3932
IS - 13
ER -