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The processing difference between kana and kanji nonword reading in Japanese speaking adults with phonological dyslexia

Shinji Uema1*, Kosei Hashimoto2, Ami Sambai3 and Akira Uno4
  • 1 Imus Itabashi Rehabilitation Hospital, Japan
  • 2 Kumamoto General Hospital (JCHO), Japan
  • 3 Osaka Kyoiku University, Japan
  • 4 University of Tsukuba, Japan

Some reports have compared kana and kanji in studies of brain damaged patients with aphasia (Morton & Sasanuma, 1984; Sasanuma, Ito, Patterson, ＆ Ito, 1996; Hashimoto & Uno, 2016). However, these reports did not analyze these individuals’ performance for nonwords. In this report, we investigated the difference in the processing between kana and kanji nonwords in reading. We administered the following tasks to 14 patients with phonological dyslexia: nonword reading (30 kana nonwords and 64 kanji nonwords), single character reading (40 kana characters and 40 kanji characters), single character rapid reading (20 kana characters and 20 kanji characters), lexical decision (kana scripts: 20 kana words, 20 kana pseudohomophones, and 20 kana nonwords; kanji scripts: 96 kanji words, 64 kanji pseudohomophones, and 64 nonwords), picture naming (40 nouns; noun-naming subtest of Test of Lexical Processing in Aphasia: TLPA), auditory/reading comprehension (32 abstract words; the Standardized Comprehension Test of Abstract Words: SCTAW), word and nonword repetition (90 words, 14 three-mora nonwords and 14 five-mora nonwords; subtests R30 and R31 of the Sophia Analysis of Language in Aphasia: SALA) and a phonological manipulation tasks (mora deletion: 6 words and 6 nonwords, repetition in reverse order: 6 words and 6 nonwords). Among the phonological manipulation tasks, all patients showed a significantly lower score on the repetition in reverse order task. However, the score in the repetition reverse order task did not significantly correlate with kana and kanji nonword reading performance. Kana nonword reading performance significantly correlated with that of kana single character rapid reading; however, kana single character rapid reading performance did not correlate with performance on any of the comprehension, picture naming, lexical decision, word/nonword repetition and phonological manipulation tasks. Kanji nonword reading performance significantly correlated with that of kanji single character reading and kanji single character rapid reading. Kanji nonword reading, kanji single character reading and kanji single character reading rapid reading performance correlated with performance on comprehension, picture naming and lexical decision tasks, while kanji single character reading and kanji single character rapid reading performance did not correlate with performance on word/nonword repetition and phonological manipulation tasks. These results can be considered to be affected by the qualitative differences in the characteristics of kana and kanji. Kanji nonwords consisted of characters that can be classified as logograms. The results for kanji nonword reading were nonetheless associated with orthographic lexical processing and the processing of phonological form retrieval from meaning, more than kana nonword reading. Furthermore, these results suggest that kana and kanji nonword reading disorders in our 14 patients may be more strongly related to the impairment of character-to-sound (mora) conversion than to post-lexical phonological processing impairment.

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References

Morton J, & Sasanuma S. (1984). Lexical access in Japanese. In L. Henderson (Ed.),Orthographies and reading: Perspectives from cognitive psychology,neuropsychology, and linguistics (pp. 25-42). London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Sasanuma, S., Ito, H., Patterson, K., & Ito, T. (1996). Phonological alexia in Japanese: A case study. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 13, 823–848. Hashimoto, K., & Uno, A. (2016). Cognitive neuropsychological analysis of differential reading and spelling disorder mechanisms in a patient with aphasia. Neurocase, 22, 294–299.

Keywords: phonological dyslexia, kana nonword, Japanese kanji nonword, single character reading, phonological processing

Conference: Academy of Aphasia 57th Annual Meeting, Macau, Macao, SAR China, 27 Oct - 29 Oct, 2019.

Presentation Type: Poster presentation

Topic: Not eligible for student award

Citation: Uema S, Hashimoto K, Sambai A and Uno A (2019). The processing difference between kana and kanji nonword reading in Japanese speaking adults with phonological dyslexia. Front. Hum. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: Academy of Aphasia 57th Annual Meeting. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2019.01.00093

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Received: 06 May 2019; Published Online: 09 Oct 2019.

* Correspondence: Mr. Shinji Uema, Imus Itabashi Rehabilitation Hospital, Itabashi, Japan, uema526@gmail.com