Orientador: Prof(a). Dr(a). Marije Soto
Páginas: 262
Resumo
Dyslexic people are often discouraged from learning a L2, however, this can be wrongly
assumed once it can have beneficial effects as scientists and studies show this
(SPARKS; GANSCHOW, 1993; WYDELL; BUTTERWORTH, 1999; AZEVEDO,
2016, among others). L1 and L2 reading difficulties are influenced by differences
between language orthographic systems. Specific features can be the degree of
transparency between sound and grapheme and the different dimensions of granularity
in the sound-orthography relationship; we associate these features to a dual route
reading model (ELLIS, 1995). That is, the dual route reading model proposes that
reading can be processed through two distinct routes: the lexical route, which relies on
whole word recognition, and the non-lexical route, which uses phonological decoding.
Furthermore, reading and oral skills may not be consolidated simultaneously (LODEJ,
2016). The objective is to compare dyslexics participants of 8, 9 and 11 years old and
their control pairs in a variety of cognitive tasks such as word dictation, repetition and
reading aloud of words, and silent reading of sentences for comprehension in L1
[Brazilian Portuguese (BP)] and L2 [English (EN)], alongside tests such as IQ, digit
span, RAN, Reading Speed of Sentences, English proficiency and language experience
and proficiency questionnaire. The hypothesis is that if dyslexics of this study, through
exposure to English, have consolidated reading strategies via the lexical route due to the
opaque and relatively less fine grained nature of the English spelling system, this may
be more compatible with their underlying cognitive issues and, therefore, be beneficial
to their reading in both L1 and L2. In the reading aloud task for words and pseudowords
task, the hypothesis that dyslexics would struggle with pseudowords in both languages
was confirmed. The successful and rapid reading of sentences for comprehension shows
students have managed to automatize their reading. When it comes to Reading Speed of
Sentences, there are higher scores in English, a very small difference between BP and
EN. Reading sentences is different from reading words. This result confirms the
hypothesis that they are better in English reading and that there is a positive effect on
Portuguese reading. The dictation data seem to confirm the difference between
cognitive processes involved in reading and writing. In writing, the transparency of a
language seems to help as we can see that the scores in BP were greater than in EN. In
RAN tasks, dyslexics show difficulties, as expected. The experience and linguistic
proficiency questionnaire showed that all the dyslexic participants prefer reading and
writing in English with the exception of D1 who prefers writing in Portuguese.
Although the digit span result was not relevant to the hypothesis, there was a surprising
result in which the dyslexic group showed higher recall than the control group, which
was not expected once dyslexics show impairment with working memory (SILVA;
CRENITTE, 2014; SMITH-SPARK;FISK,2007; MENGHINI et al, 2011). In the BP
pseudowords repetition task, results revealed that dyslexic participants do not struggle
with their phonological loop once they achieve high marks in the smaller words and due
to the fact that all words require a certain level of phonological analysis. Indeed, the
dyslexic participants showed specific difficulties with pseudowords both for BP and EN
compared to the control group, which suggest a weak engagement of the phonological
route. However, sentence reading performance shows good and efficient performance
closer to control groups, possibly as a result of direct lexical mapping. Herewith, the
data of this study truly expand Azevedo's (2016) findings. Bilingual dyslexics that have
a great exposure to English have better performance in reading measures in English than
Portuguese, even at early age; but have also developed reading skills in BP despite
receiving only 5 hours of weekly reading instruction in the language. The results
partially show this idea that bilingual dyslexics "take advantage" of the English reading
strategies to Portuguese, but it is difficult to state that because there are still differences
between groups. However, the dyslexics were certainly better in English than
Portuguese, showing that the exposure to a L2 is not a problem.