Maggie Snowling

• University of Oxford

Background Oral language skills are a critical foundation for education and psychosocial development. Learning to read, in particular, depends heavily on oral language skills. The Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI) has been shown to improve the language of 4–5‐year‐old children entering school with language weaknesses in four robust trials...

Background Dyslexia is one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders. There have been many definitions over the past century, and debate continues as to how dyslexia should be defined. This debate contributes to confusion and misinformation. We move beyond the debate by establishing areas of consensus among a wide range of experts. Methods W...

This paper discusses the findings of a Delphi study in which dyslexia experts, including academics, specialist teachers, educational psychologists, and individuals with dyslexia, were asked for their agreement with a set of key statements about defining and identifying dyslexia: why it should be assessed and how and when this assessment should be c...

A robust finding from research in high-income countries is that children living in resource-poor homes are vulnerable to difficulties with language and literacy but less is known about this association in low- and middle-income (LMI) countries. We present a meta-analysis of 6,678 correlations from studies in 43 LMI countries. Overall, the results i...

Handedness has been studied for association with language-related disorders because of its link with language hemispheric dominance. No clear pattern has emerged, possibly because of small samples, publication bias, and heterogeneous criteria across studies. Non-right-handedness (NRH) frequency was assessed in N = 2503 cases with reading and/or lan...

Reading Disability (RD) is often characterized by difficulties in the phonology of the language. While the molecular mechanisms underlying it are largely undetermined, loci are being revealed by genome-wide association studies (GWAS). In a previous GWAS for word reading (Price, 2020), we observed that top single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were...

Objective To report how improvements on a Brazilian language intervention for early childhood education settings (PROLIN) were made and evaluated. Study Design In the first phase, the programme layout and materials were improved. This involved redesigning the guidelines for the programme, adding videos (using a learning management system) and crea...

Objective: To report how improvements on a Brazilian language intervention for early childhood education settings (PROLIN) were madeand evaluated. Study Design: In the first phase, the programme layout and materials were improved. This involved redesigning the guidelines for the programme, adding videos (using a learning management system) and crea...

Oral language skills are critical for psychosocial development and children with language difficulties are more likely than peers to experience behavioral problems. This study investigated the effects of an oral language intervention on behavioral adjustment. We collected teacher ratings of behavioral adjustment for 1173 children taking part in a c...

Worldwide, the majority of people prefer using the right hand for most motor tasks. Because of the link between handedness and language hemispheric dominance, handedness has been studied for association with language-related disorders. No clear pattern has emerged from these studies, and inconsistencies have been attributed to small sample sizes, p...

Children with and without dyslexia differ in their behavioural responses to visual information, particularly when required to pool dynamic signals over space and time. Importantly, multiple processes contribute to behavioural responses. Here we investigated which processing stages are affected in children with dyslexia when performing visual motion...

The use of spoken and written language is a capacity that is unique to humans. Individual differences in reading- and language-related skills are influenced by genetic variation, with twin-based heritability estimates of 30-80%, depending on the trait. The relevant genetic architecture is complex, heterogeneous, and multifactorial, and yet to be in...

Background Shared storybook reading is an important context for language learning and often constitutes young children's first encounter with the printed word. The quality of early shared reading interactions is a known predictor of language and reading development, but few studies have examined these interactions in children at family risk of dysl...

Atypicalities in psychophysical thresholds for global motion processing have been reported in many neurodevelopmental conditions, including autism and dyslexia. Cross-syndrome comparisons of neural dynamics may help determine whether altered motion processing is a general marker of atypical development or condition-specific. Here, we assessed group...

Children with and without dyslexia differ in their behavioural responses to visual information, particularly when required to pool dynamic signals over space and time. Importantly, multiple processes contribute to behavioural responses. Here we investigated which processing stages are affected in children with dyslexia when performing visual motion...

At least 5% of children present unexpected difficulties in expressing and understanding spoken language. This condition is highly heritable and often co-occurs with other neurodevelopmental disorders such as dyslexia and ADHD. Through an exome sequencing analysis, we identified a rare missense variant (chr16:84405221, GRCh38.p12) in the ATP2C2 gene...

Background It is well established that oral language skills provide a critical foundation for formal education. This study evaluated the effectiveness of the Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI) programme in ameliorating language difficulties in the first year of school when delivered at scale. Methods We conducted a cluster randomized cont...

Disorders of reading and mathematics co-occur at greater than chance rates, but they are often studied separately. This article reports the reading and arithmetic outcomes at 9 years of age from a longitudinal study of 224 children at high risk for dyslexia. Using a cutoff at the 10th centile, groups of children with reading disorder (RD), mathemat...

At least 5% of children present unexpected difficulties in expressing and understanding spoken language. This condition is highly heritable and often co-occurs with other neurodevelopmental disorders such as dyslexia and ADHD. Through an exome sequencing analysis, we identified a rare missense variant (chr16:84405221, GRCh38.p12) in the ATP2C2 gene...

This paper discusses research on reading disorders during the period since their classification within the overarching category of neurodevelopmental disorders (Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 53, 2012, 593). Following a review of the predictors of learning to read across languages, and the role of language skills as critical foundation...

Oral language is crucial for social interaction and for learning in the classroom; it also provides the foundation for reading comprehension. It follows that children with language difficulties are at high risk of educational failure. Recently, a number of studies have demonstrated that it is possible to produce small but significant improvements i...

Dyslexia is a difficulty in learning to decode (read aloud) and to spell. DSM5 classifies dyslexia as one form of neurodevelopmental disorder. Neurodevelopmental disorders are heritable, life-long conditions with early onset. For many years, research on dyslexia proceeded on the basis that it was a specific learning difficulty – specific meaning th...

Background There is increasing recognition of the contribution of morphological skills to the development of reading fluency. However, theoretical models and recent research raise questions about how different language skills influence reading development. Methods The present study was designed to follow the reading development of a large sample o...

Purpose This study aimed to develop and validate a screening questionnaire for the early identification of language difficulties in Brazilian Portuguese–speaking preschool children. Method The article is divided into two studies. In the first study, we reported the theoretical principles that guided the development of the Screening for Identificat...

This study evaluated the effects of a reading and language intervention, for low-income children living in a remote Chilean community, using a randomized controlled trial. At the beginning of the study, participants were allocated to the intervention (n = 34) or waiting control (n = 34) minimizing on a composite language measure and age. Children i...

Background Reading comprehension draws on both decoding and linguistic comprehension, and poor reading comprehension can be the consequence of a deficit in either of these skills. Methods Using outcome data from the longitudinal Wellcome Language and Reading Project, we identified three groups of children at age 8 years: children with dyslexia (N...

The general consensus in the field is that when the home language is different from the language of instruction in school then children's literacy attainments could slow down. In this 26‐year review of the literature on children's literacy attainments in low‐ to middle‐income countries, 40 correlational, ethnographic and intervention studies provid...

Speech perception deficits are commonly reported in dyslexia but longitudinal evidence that poor speech perception compromises learning to read is scant. We assessed the hypothesis that phonological skills, specifically phoneme awareness and RAN, mediate the relationship between speech perception and reading. We assessed longitudinal predictive rel...

Background Reading disorder (RD) and mathematics disorder (MD) frequently co‐occur. However, the exact comorbidity rates differ largely between studies. Given that MD is characterised by high heterogeneity on the symptom level, differences in comorbidity rates may result from different mathematical subskills used to define MD. Comorbidity rates wit...

This study evaluated the claim that auditory processing deficits are a cause of reading and language difficulties. We report a longitudinal study of 245 children at family risk of dyslexia, children with preschool language impairments, and control children. Children with language impairments had poorer frequency-discrimination thresholds than contr...

Background This study investigates the causal relationships between reading and print exposure and investigates whether the amount children read outside school determines how well they read, or vice versa. Previous findings from behavioural studies suggest that reading predicts print exposure. Here, we use twin‐data and apply the behaviour‐genetic...

Background: It is widely believed that increasing parental involvement can improve children's educational outcomes although we lack good evidence for such claims. This study evaluated the effectiveness of a parent-delivered early language enrichment programme. Methods: We conducted a randomised controlled trial (RCT) with 208 preschool children...

The home literacy environment is a well-established predictor of children’s language and literacy development. We investigated whether formal, informal, and indirect measures of the home literacy environment predict children’s reading and language skills once maternal language abilities are taken into account. Data come from a longitudinal study of...

Dyslexia is a specific impairment in learning to read and has strong heritability. An intronic deletion within the DCDC2 gene, with ~8% frequency in European populations, is increasingly used as a marker for dyslexia in neuroimaging and behavioral studies. At a mechanistic level, this deletion has been proposed to influence sensory processing capac...

This study evaluated two 20-week reading interventions for pupils entering secondary school with reading difficulties. The interventions were delivered by trained teaching assistants (three 35-min sessions per week). 287 pupils (ages 11–13) from 27 schools were randomly allocated to three groups: reading intervention (targeting word recognition and...

Background: Lack of agreement about criteria and terminology for children’s language difficulties affects access to services as well as hindering research and practice. We report the second phase of a study using an online Delphi method to address these issues. In the first phase, we focused on criteria for language disorder. Here we consider termi...

Background: Oral language skills are a critical foundation for literacy and more generally for educational success. The current study shows that oral language skills can be improved by providing suitable additional help to children with language difficulties in the early stages of formal education. Methods: We conducted a randomized controlled t...

Background: Lack of agreement about criteria and terminology for children’s language difficulties affects access to services as well as hindering research and practice. We report the second phase of a study using an online Delphi method to address these issues. In the first phase, we focused on criteria for language disorder. Here we consider termi...

Appendix S1. Participant groups at Time 1 of the Wellcome Language & Reading Project sample overall (above), showing how they map onto the SSD groups used for analyses in this paper (below).

While practitioners are increasingly asked to be mindful of the evidence-base of intervention programmes, evidence from rigorous trials for the effectiveness of interventions that promote oral language abilities in the early years is sparse. Aims: This study evaluates the effectiveness of a language intervention programme for children identified...

General learning disorders are characterized by global delays across a variety of academic skills, whereas specific learning disorders are characterized by difficulties in a particular area of academic skill. Perhaps the best understood of all the specific learning disorders is dyslexia – a learning disorder primarily affecting accurate and fluent...

Appendix S1. Overview of Test Protocol. Appendix S2. Syllable Deletion Task in Russian and English. Appendix S3. Phoneme Deletion Task in Russian and English. Appendix S4. Initial and Final Phoneme Isolation Tasks in Russian and English. Appendix S5. Word and Nonword Reading Tasks in Russian and English.

The home literacy environment (HLE) predicts language and reading development in typically developing children; relatively little is known about its association with literacy development in children at family-risk of dyslexia. We assessed the HLE at age 4 years, precursor literacy skills at age 5, and literacy outcomes at age 6, in a sample of chil...

The ‘automatic letter-sound integration hypothesis’ (Blomert, 2011) proposes that dyslexia results from a failure to fully integrate letters and speech sounds into automated audio-visual objects. We tested this hypothesis in a sample of English-speaking children with dyslexic difficulties (N = 13) and samples of chronological-age-matched (CA; N = 1...

Purpose of review: We review current knowledge about the nature of reading development and disorders, distinguishing between the processes involved in learning to decode print, and the processes involved in reading comprehension. Recent findings: Children with decoding difficulties/dyslexia experience deficits in phoneme awareness, letter-sound...

We present the case study of MB—a bilingual child with Down syndrome (DS) who speaks Russian (first language [L1]) and English (second language [L2]) and has learned to read in two different alphabets with different symbol systems. We demonstrate that, in terms of oral language, MB is as proficient in Russian as English, with a mild advantage for r...

Two important foundations for learning are language and executive skills. Data from a longitudinal study tracking the development of 93 children at family-risk of dyslexia and 76 controls was used to investigate the influence of these skills on the development of arithmetic. A two-group longitudinal path model assessed the relationships between lan...

High comorbidity rates between reading disorder (RD) and mathematics disorder (MD) indicate that, although the cognitive core deficits underlying these disorders are distinct, additional domain-general risk factors might be shared between the disorders. Three domain-general cognitive abilities were investigated in children with RD and MD: processin...

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often have impairments in reading comprehension alongside relatively spared word reading; however, studies investigating reading profiles in ASD have been small in scale and few have examined whether word reading skills are underpinned by key foundation skills (e.g., phonological decoding) that need to b...

Les enfants porteurs d’un Trouble du spectre autistique (TSA) présentent, pour la plupart, des difficultés de compréhension avec un niveau de lecture relativement correct. Ces études sont peu nombreuses et rares sont celles qui ont examiné les compétences de base nécessaires à l’apprentissage de la lecture (e.g. le décodage phonologique) chez ces e...

Presents cutting-edge, evidence-based interventions for dealing with specific difficulties of reading comprehension in children aged 7-11. An in-depth introduction to the 'poor comprehender profile', which describes children who despite being fluent readers have difficulty extracting meaning from text. Sets out a range of practical interventions fo...

This chapter shares the fine detail of the oral language intervention components, namely, vocabulary, reciprocal teaching, figurative language, and spoken narrative. It offers examples of how these can be taught through a range of engaging activities. It considers each oral language component in depth, with running commentary from Fiona and Tanya,...

APPENDIX 1. CONSENT PROCEDURES APPENDIX 2. TRAINING OF TEACHING ASSISTANTS APPENDIX 3. TEACHING ASSISTANT FEEDBACK ON TRAINING APPENDIX 4. MANUAL PRODUCTION APPENDIX 5. ADDITIONAL PREPARATION APPENDIX 6. FORTNIGHTLY TUTORIAL GROUPS APPENDIX 7. RECORD SHEETS APPENDIX 8. OBSERVATIONS AND ON-SITE FEEDBACK APPENDIX 9. NEWSLETTERS APPENDIX 10. SHARING D...

This chapter details some of the tools the authors used to collect ongoing feedback from those involved in the York Reading for Meaning project. Feedback was collected at tutorials, through the record forms, and using questionnaires at the end of each 10-week block of teaching. The chapter summarises some of the key findings from these feedback que...

This chapter provides an overview of the three intervention programmes that the authors developed for the York Reading for Meaning Project. It considers the core principles underpinning the intervention programmes. Vygotsky's socio-cultural theory of learning has been highly influential in educational practice and provides the rationale for some of...

The results of the York Reading for Meaning Project show that once children have been identified as having reading comprehension difficulties, it is possible to provide additional teaching that can significantly improve their reading and language comprehension skills. The authors compare the effects of three different interventions: an Oral Languag...

This chapter offers an overview of the York Reading for Meaning Project. This large-scale project was a randomised controlled trial (RCT) carried out with 20 primary schools in the north of England, to evaluate three intervention programmes designed to support reading comprehension. The chapter outlines the aims, design, assessments and findings of...

This book examines the young science of psycholinguistics, which attempts to uncover the mechanisms and representations underlying human language. This interdisciplinary field has seen massive developments over the past decade, with a broad expansion of the research base, and the incorporation of new experimental techniques such as brain imaging an...

Appendix S1.Test Battery. Appendix S2.Intervention Programme.

The Role of Teaching AssistantsThe Training CourseInduction for Delivery of the Oral Language (OL) ProgrammeThe Views of the Teaching AssistantsTheme 1: Strengths of Intervention ProjectIssues Arising from the Intervention ProjectSituation Following InterventionComparison of the Two ProgrammesRecommendations Based on Experience of Delivering the In...

General Teaching PrinciplesStructure of the ProgrammeThe Individual ActivitiesSummary

Programme StructureSession StructureKey Components of the InterventionSummary

Motivation for the Intervention ProgrammesHypotheses of the StudyHow did We Select Children?The Research ProtocolMonitoring ProgressThe FindingsLonger Term Follow-UpConclusions

How can We Evaluate the Effectiveness of Teaching Methods?Randomised Controlled TrialsAlternatives to RCTsEvidence from Randomised Trials for the Effectiveness of Different Interventions for Reading Problems in ChildrenA Way Forward? Early Intervention at the Foundation of Literacy SkillsSumming up: The Effects of Reading and Language Interventions...

Children Who Respond Poorly to InterventionReading Intervention for Children with down SyndromeConclusions

The Assessment ProcessLanguage and Literacy SkillsMonitoring Progress during the InterventionConclusions

ABSTRACTS In 1989, Enderby and Davies discussed the type and pattern of speech and language therapy provision which would be required to service the needs of the speech‐ and language‐impaired population of the UK, on the basis of statistical information drawn from a wide range of sources. In this paper, some methodological issues arising from their...

Comprehension difficulties are commonly reported in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) but the causes of these difficulties are poorly understood. This study investigates how children with ASD access and select meanings of ambiguous words to test four hypotheses regarding the nature of their comprehension difficulties: semantic deficit, weak central co...

Developmental reading problems show strong persistence across the school years; less is known about poor readers' later progress in literacy skills. Poor (n = 42) and normally developing readers (n = 86) tested in adolescence (ages 14/15 years) in the Isle of Wight epidemiological studies were re-contacted at mid-life (ages 44/45 years). Participan...

Evidence suggests there is a heightened risk of psychiatric disorder in children with speech-language impairments. However, not all forms of language impairment are strongly associated with psychosocial difficulty, and some psychiatric disorders (e.g., attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)) are more prevalent than others in language-impai...

Background: This study evaluated the effectiveness of an intervention for reading-delayed children in Year-1 classes. Methods: A sample (N = 77) of children drawn from 14 schools representing those with the weakest reading skills were randomly allocated to one of two groups. A 20-week intervention group received the intervention for two consecutive...

This study evaluated the effectiveness of an intervention for reading-delayed children in Year-1 classes. METHODS: A sample (N = 77) of children drawn from 14 schools representing those with the weakest reading skills were randomly allocated to one of two groups. A 20-week intervention group received the intervention for two consecutive 10-week...

Thirty 8–11-year-old children were administered tests of rapid naming (RAN letters and digits) and reading-related skills. Consistent with the hypothesis that RAN predicts reading because it assesses the ability to establish arbitrary mappings between visual symbols and verbal labels, RAN accounted for independent variance in exception word reading...

Developmental dyslexia and specific language impairment (SLI) were for many years treated as distinct disorders but are now often regarded as different manifestations of the same underlying problem, differing only in severity or developmental stage. The merging of these categories has been motivated by the reconceptualization of dyslexia as a langu...