Department of Psychology and Human Development, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA.
Neuroscience Program, College of Arts and Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA.
Neuroimage. 2021 Aug 1;236:118083. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118083. Epub 2021 Apr 18.
By using a longitudinal design and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), our previous study (Wang et al., 2020) found a scaffolding effect of early phonological processing in the superior temporal gyrus (STG) in 6-year-old children on later behavioral reading skill in 7.5-year-old children. Other than this previous study, nothing is known about longitudinal change in the bidirectional relation between reading skill and phonological processing in the brain. To fill this gap, in the current study, we used the same experimental paradigm as in Wang et al. (2020) to measure children's reading skill and brain activity during an auditory phonological awareness task, but with children who were 7.5 years old at Time 1 (T1) and about 1.5 years later when they were 9 years old at Time 2 (T2). The phonological awareness task included both small grain (i.e., onset) and large grain (i.e., rhyme) conditions. In a univariate analysis, we found that better reading skill at T1 predicted lower brain activation in IFG at T2 for onset processing after controlling for brain activation and non-verbal IQ at T1. This suggests that early reading ability reduces the effort of phonemic access, thus supporting the refinement hypothesis. When using general psychophysiological interaction (gPPI), we found that higher functional connectivity from IFG to STG for rhyme processing at T1 predicted better reading skill at T2 after controlling for reading skill and non-verbal IQ at T1. This suggests that the early effectiveness of accessing rhyme representations scaffolds reading acquisition. As both results did not survive multiple comparison corrections, replication of these findings is needed. However, both findings are consistent with prior studies demonstrating that phonological access in the frontal lobe becomes important in older elementary school readers. Moreover, the refinement effect for onsets is consistent with the hypothesis that learning to read allows for better access of small grain phonology, and the scaffolding effect for rhymes supports the idea that reading progresses to larger grain orthography-to-phonology mapping in older skilled readers. The current study, along with our previous study on younger children, indicates that the development of reading skill is associated with (1) the early importance of the quality of the phonological representations to later access of these representations, and (2) early importance of small grain sizes to later development of large grain ones.
利用纵向设计和功能磁共振成像（fMRI），我们之前的研究（Wang 等人，2020 年）发现，6 岁儿童颞上回（STG）早期语音处理的支架效应可预测 7.5 岁儿童后期行为阅读技能。除了这项之前的研究，关于大脑中阅读技能和语音处理之间的双向关系的纵向变化，目前还没有其他信息。为了填补这一空白，在本研究中，我们使用了与 Wang 等人（2020 年）相同的实验范式来测量儿童在听觉语音意识任务期间的阅读技能和大脑活动，但参与者在第一次时间（T1）时为 7.5 岁，大约 1.5 年后，即第二次时间（T2）时为 9 岁。语音意识任务包括小粒度（即，音首）和大粒度（即，韵母）条件。在单变量分析中，我们发现，在控制 T1 时的大脑活动和非言语智商后，T1 时的阅读技能越好，预示着 T2 时的音首处理的 IFG 大脑活动越低。这表明早期的阅读能力降低了语音访问的努力，从而支持了精细化假说。当使用一般心理生理交互作用（gPPI）时，我们发现，在控制 T1 时的阅读技能和非言语智商后，T1 时 IFG 到 STG 的韵母处理的功能连接越高，预测 T2 时的阅读技能越好。这表明，早期访问韵母表示的效果为阅读习得提供了支撑。由于这两个结果都没有通过多次比较校正，因此需要对这些发现进行复制。然而，这两个结果都与先前的研究一致，表明额叶中的语音访问在年龄较大的小学生中变得很重要。此外，对于音首的精细化效应与这样一种假设一致，即学习阅读可以更好地访问小粒度的语音，而对于韵母的支撑效应则支持这样一种观点，即阅读在年龄较大的熟练读者中发展到更大粒度的正字法到语音映射。本研究以及我们之前对年幼儿童的研究表明，阅读技能的发展与（1）语音表示质量的早期重要性与后来对这些表示的访问有关，以及（2）小粒度的早期重要性与后来大粒度的发展有关。
