Recent Advances in Chinese Developmental Dyslexia

Abstract

Chinese developmental dyslexia (DD) research provides important insights into the language-universal and language-specific mechanisms underlying dyslexia. In this article, we review recent advances in Chinese DD. Converging behavioral evidence suggests that, while phonological and rapid automatized naming deficits are language universal, orthographic and morphological deficits are specific to the linguistic properties of Chinese. At the neural level, hypoactivation in the left superior temporal/inferior frontal regions in dyslexic children across Chinese and alphabetic languages may indicate a shared phonological processing deficit, whereas hyperactivation in the right inferior occipital/middle temporal regions and atypical activation in the left frontal areas in Chinese dyslexic children may indicate a language-specific compensatory strategy for impaired visual-spatial analysis and a morphological deficit in Chinese DD, respectively. The findings call for further theoretical endeavors to understand the language-universal and Chinese-specific neurobiological mechanisms underlying dyslexia and to design more effective and efficient intervention programs.