Prosodic abilities and dyslexic Children: Multidimensional fluency scale for oral reading

International audienceThe aims of the study are: a) to test the effectiveness of Multidimensional Fluency Scale in detecting reading problems, and; b) to assess the impact of prosodic abilities in order to identify dyslexic readers. The methodology consisted of the presentation of sentences extracted from the text reading by dyslexic children and normal developing readers to judges who should classify each extract according to Muldidimensional Reading Fluency Scale. Samples of 3 different sections of the reading of 10 dyslexic children and 10 normal developing readers of the same age and education (mean age 9.5 years), all native speakers of Portuguese, were randomly and blindly presented to 20 judges, 10 Brazilian and 10 French. The experiment was run at Perceval software. Each extract heard by the judges should be classified (noting the characteristics outlined in the scale scores from 1(very abnormal) to 4 (normal), on the following items: A. Expression B. Phrasing, C. Rhythm and D. Pace. The mean response for dyslexia group was significantly lower when compared to the control group. That is, the scale used works well as an indicator of reading problems because it was able to define well the classification between the two groups, clearly distinguishing the group of dyslexic children as no fluent readers and the group of regular readers as fluent. There was no statistically significant difference in the responses between the Brazilian and French judges. That is, the perception of these suprasegmental features is important for the classification of fluency in reading, regardless of the perceived content read. The conclusion is thus that prosodic skills are strong factors for identifying dyslexic readers. These characteristics are important not only to better describe the reading of dyslexic children, but also for the monitoring of fluency in reading at school, with all the students