This Research Topic is the second edition of
Fluency and reading comprehension in typical readers and dyslexics readers: Volume IThis Second Edition Research Topic is focused on the characterization of the reading-writing difficulties and their comorbidities and in the analysis of evidence-based recommendations for early interventions and treatment of these difficulties within the fields of neuropsychology, speech-language pathology, and educational psychology.
Reading involves decoding and comprehension components, and to become efficient it requires a large number of cognitive and linguistic processes. Among those, decoding failures can have different origins, such as deficits in phonological and/or visual processing. In addition, a child with reading difficulties might also have problems in the acquisition of writing and handwriting performance. This is an important point to be discussed, as reading and writing both suffer interference from vocabulary acquisition, linguistic skills, memory skills, reading and writing practices, and literacy methods. These processes become important only when the professional needs to deal with students presenting learning difficulties. Difficulty in using the knowledge of conversion rules between grapheme-phoneme to word reading construction or phoneme-grapheme for writing can be identified in schoolchildren with dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dysortography, being a specific learning disorder with a neurological etiology. In addition, there is established evidence of a speech-language processing basis, students with specific learning disabilities can show a range of cognitive difficulties (e.g., rapid naming, executive functioning, working memory). These presented difficulties interfere in their learning process, impairing their learning development.
In addition, specific learning disorders frequently co-occur with other comorbidities (e.g. externalizing problems, internalizing problems, or other neurodevelopmental disorders). Knowing and understanding comorbidities is at the heart of understanding developmental disorders. Knowing and the following reading and writing development, its processes, as well as their disorders and comorbidities will favor the characterization of these populations, discuss theories, and guide clinical and educational practices, aiming at the elaboration of intervention programs for such difficulties.
The Editors of this second volume would favor contributions specifically focused on:
- Evaluation of reading fluency in students with typical and atypical development;
- Evaluation of handwriting fluency in students with typical and atypical development;
- Study of the underlying skills' learning reading and writing;
- Comorbidities of reading and writing disabilities;
- Intervention programs for reading and writing in different linguistic, clinical, and educational modalities.