Transcript FON 218: Neurolinguistics

FON 218: Neurolinguistics
Dyslexia in the Greek Language
Eleni Tseva, Marina Katsanou
24 May 2007
What is
Dyslexia??

Dyslexia is a neurodevelopmental disorder
that is characterised by
difficulties in one or more
of reading, spelling,
writing, mathematics or
musical notation. This
neuro-developmental
disorder implies a
complex causal chain
from biology to
behaviour.
Dyslexia in
different
languages..


Dyslexia manifests itself
differently in different
languages according to the
structure of orthography.
There are 3 types of
orthographies:



Alphabetic orthographies
Logographic orthographies
Semi-alphabetic – Semisyllabic orthographies
Alphabetic orthographies:
They are divided into transparent and non transparent
(opaque). The level of transparency has been shown to
determine how easily children learn to read. In a transparent
orthography the mappings between graphemes and phonemes
are reliable while in opaque they are much less reliable.
Transparent: Italian, Spanish, Greek*
Opaque: English, French
Logographic orthographies
• There are orthography–phonology correspondence rules (OPC).
Some researchers believe that visual skills rather than
phonological skills are important in learning to read such
languages. (Chinese)
Semi-alphabetic – Semi-syllabic orthographies
• The basic written unit is not only phonemes, but also syllables.
However the predominant orthographic representation is
syllabographs. (Indian Scripts)
Auditory
Dyslexia
Visual
Dyslexia
Types of
Dyslexia
Difficulties in
orientation
Reading and
comprehending
inability
Auditory Dyslexia (developmental phonological
dyslexia)
It is the failing in acoustic perception and sound distinction.
Children with this type of dyslexia face the following problems:
• they find it hard to discern the sounds that are alike and
they often confuse the followings:
α-ο
/a/-/o/
ο-ου
/o/-/u/
ε-ι
/e/-/i/
• they have the same difficulty when it comes to the pitch
of other sounds, like:
β-φ
βάρος – φάρος (weight-firehouse)
δ-θ
δεσμός – θεσμός (affiliation-institution)
σ-ζ-ξ
σώζω – συζήτηση – σύζευξη
• they cannot hear the difference in word stress:
πόδια – ποδιά (feet-smock)
γέρος – γερός (old-strong)
νόμος –νομός (law-country)
γνωρίζω – γυρίζω – χωρίζω (know-turn-split)
3 syllables, same
ending, stressed
on the same
syllable
• they often cannot hear the endings of the words:
άσχημος, άνθρωπος (they drop the last –ς which in Greek signs the gender
and grammatical case)
• they cannot perceive and retain in their long-term memory the similarities of the
sounds:
κ-χ
/k/-/x/
velar
γ-χ
/γ/-/x/
velar-fricative
γκ-γγ
/g/-/g/
velar-plosive
τ-δ
/t/-/ð/
alveolar-plosive
π-μπ
/p/-/b/
bilabial-plosive
τζ-τς
/ts/-/dz/
postalveolar-fricative
θ-φ
/θ/-/f/
fricatives
Visual dyslexia (developmental surface dyslexia)
It is the failing in visual conception and memory and lack in
noting different shapes-symbols. In particular, children:
• confuse letters or symbols that are alike:
α–ο
ε–3
ζ–ξ
β–θ
β–Φ
θ–6
• cannot keep in mind the whole image of words that look similar:
σπάζω – στάζω (break-drop)
θερμός – δεσμός (warm-bond)
προσβολή – προβολή (offense-promotion)
•
cannot keep in mind the whole image not only of words, but also of whole
sentences. When they see a word or sentence and they have to read or write it, they
seem like they see it for the first time, even if they have seen it many times before.
• mirror reading-writing:
χα – αχ
οτ – το
• they confuse the numbers that look similar:
6-9
5-3
23-32
7-1
4-7
• they confuse the mathematic figures (+ - : x). This may
happen even to older students (last years of high-school)
when they are stressed (e.g. during exams)
• they have difficulties in analysing a sentence in syllables or
sounds, or composing a sentence.
• moreover, they have problems in:
syntax
word classes (noun, adjective etc.)
verb tenses – mostly in past tense (which is used very often in
Greek)
• they also have difficulties in using function words -και, ότι,
που (and, to, that)- which means that they can only produce
small, simple sentences:
*Θα πετάξω τον αετό. Μου έδωσε η Λένα τον αετό.
Θα πετάξω τον αετό που μου έδωσε η Λένα.
***We should mention here that it is rare that both visual and
auditory dyslexia are found at the same person. There are, of
course mistakes that dyslexics make and are related with both
types of dyslexia. This happens when replacing or reversing letters
in a word:
Χιρστός
instead of Χριστός
φέλω
instead of θέλω
When these two types of dyslexia are combined, then we have lack
in concentration (Attention Deficit Disorder). The dyslexic child has
difficulties in following the work rhythms of its classroom, as it
cannot concentrate and react fast.
Reading and comprehending inability
Identifying a word and understanding a word are two
processes that in non-dyslexic people are combined
automatically. In dyslexic people they look like two parallel
lines that cannot coincide.
Even if the dyslexic person tries hard to distinguish the
sounds or letters, he reads slowly and forgets the meaning of
what he reads. This happens because he/she focuses on
identifying the words.
Difficulties in orientation, control of time,
positioning, in comprehending forms and
“arbitrary” orders
• difficulties in distinguishing pre-mathematic meanings
(directions) and points of the compass:
πάνω κάτω
δεξιά
αριστερά
μπροστά
πίσω
Ανατολή
Δύση
Βορράς
Νότος
(up-down)
(right-left)
(in front-back)
(East-West)
(North-South)
• difficulties in learning the time, as they cannot easily
distinguish the direction of the hour and minute hands and
their difference (what each of them shows).
• difficulties in the mathematical order of the numbers and
other “arbitrary” orders:
week days (Δευτέρα-Τρίτη-Τετάρτη...)
months and which of them have 30 – 31 days
alphabet
multiplication table
verbs in foreign languages
telephone numbers
musical tones
• even adult dyslexics have difficulties in remembering and
reading a phone number. A non dyslexic for example would read
93-57-957 or 93-579-57, a dyslexic would read each number
separately 9-3-5-7-9-5-7.
• they also face difficulties with fractions as they confuse up and
down, so they cannot say which is the nominator and which the
denominator.
Solutions
• Dyslexia is not a disease and we cannot say that some day
we will have a biological or genetic solution.
But dyslexia is a disorder that can be treated through education
and it is mostly a matter of psychology.
• A special treatment that is experimentally testified and can be
applied in Greek Language is the teaching of Ancient Greek.
In particular, it is found that by learning the historic
orthography improves the child’s perceptual and visual abilities
which are connected with the appearance of dyslexia:
συν-ειδητοποιώ < συν + εἴδηση + ποιῶ
κυνηγός < κύνας + ἂγω (past tense: ἦγον)
References
Κασσίμη Αλεξάνδρα. “Αρχαία Ελληνικά κατά δυσλεξίας.” Η
Καθημερινή 28 Oct. 2005 < http://www.kathimerini.gr>
Μπακάλη Ευμορφία. “Δυσλεξία ή διαταραχή της ανάγνωσης.”
Μαθησιακές Δυσκολίες. 25 Dec. 2005, Αριστοτέλειο
Πανεπιστήμιο Θεσσαλονίκης. 15 May 2007
http://www.focusonchild.gr
Elaine Miles. “Dyslexia may show a different face in different
languages.” Dyslexia 6. 3 (2000): 193-201. 17 May 2007
Tong Goh Chok. “Dyslexia in different orthographies.” Dyslexia
Association of Singapore ……<www.das.org.sg> 17 May 2007