Characteristics of Developmental Dyslexia in Japanese Kana from the Viewpoint of the Japanese Feature

要旨

This study identified the individual differences in the effects of Japanese Dyslexia. The participants consisted of 12 Japanese children who had difficulties in reading and writing Japanese and were suspected of having developmental disorders. A test battery was created on the basis of the characteristics of the Japanese language to examine Kana's orthography-to-phonology mapping and target four cognitive skills: analysis of phonological structure, letter-to-sound conversion, visual information processing, and eye-hand coordination. An examination of the individual ability levels for these four elements revealed that reading and writing difficulties are not caused by a single disability, but by a combination of factors. Additionally, the combination of individual elements differed among the participants, which indicates that children with learning disabilities may need different types of support even if they have similar reading and writing difficulties. Furthermore, this study demonstrated that words written in Kana, one of the Japanese syllabic, are easy to segment into phonological units, but difficult to interpret when attempting to link each letter to its corresponding sound. These findings can help change the concept of Japanese dyslexia and have a significant impact on education methods and techniques in Japan.

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