- UNESCO Chair on Inclusive Literacy to AllEmeritus professor of psychology in the University of Jyväskylä, Finlandedit
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The use of spoken and written language is a fundamental human capacity. Individual differences in reading- and language-related skills are influenced by genetic variation, with twin-based heritability estimates of 30 to 80% depending on... more
The use of spoken and written language is a fundamental human capacity. Individual differences in reading- and language-related skills are influenced by genetic variation, with twin-based heritability estimates of 30 to 80% depending on the trait. The genetic architecture is complex, heterogeneous, and multifactorial, but investigations of contributions of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were thus far underpowered. We present a multicohort genome-wide association study (GWAS) of five traits assessed individually using psychometric measures (word reading, nonword reading, spelling, phoneme awareness, and nonword repetition) in samples of 13,633 to 33,959 participants aged 5 to 26 y. We identified genome-wide significant association with word reading (rs11208009, P = 1.098 × 10 −8 ) at a locus that has not been associated with intelligence or educational attainment. All five reading-/language-related traits showed robust SNP heritability, accounting for 13 to 26% of trait varia...
Research Interests:
BackgroundIn 2018, it was found that only a quarter of Grade 3 children in India were reading at grade level. A growing demand for English education has further limited children's literacy achievement. Despite a strong evidence base... more
BackgroundIn 2018, it was found that only a quarter of Grade 3 children in India were reading at grade level. A growing demand for English education has further limited children's literacy achievement. Despite a strong evidence base in favour of using systematic phonics for building English literacy skills, many teachers in India continue to use rote‐methods of literacy instruction.ObjectivesWe aimed to examine the efficacy of GraphoLearn (GL) English Rime, a computer‐assisted reading intervention, in improving the foundational literacy skills of 1st and 2nd grade students who were attending an English medium school in India.MethodsA total of 136 students across 6 classrooms were randomly allocated to play either GL or a control math game over a 5‐week intervention period. Students were pre‐ and post‐tested on various English literacy skills using tasks built into the GL software as well as through oral and paper‐based tasks.Results and ConclusionsStudents who played GL showed s...
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Psychology and Dyslexia
Agora muodostaa kohtaamispaikan, jossa yrityselämä, yhteiskunta ja yliopisto voivat yhdessä ponistella kehittääkseen uusia teknologisia ja sosiaalisia innovaatioita
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... more
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 investigated with well-powered studies. Here, we present a multicohort genome-wide association study (GWAS) of five traits assessed individually using psychometric measures: word reading, nonword reading, spelling, phoneme awareness, and nonword repetition, with total sample sizes ranging from 13,633 to 33,959 participants aged 5-26 years (12,411 to 27,180 for those with European ancestry, defined by principal component analyses). We identified a genome-wide significant association with word reading (rs11208009, p=1.098 × 10−8) independent of known loci associated with intelligence or educational attainment. All five reading-/language-relate...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The effects of a 4-month physical activity program on physical fitness, balance, and ball skills were examined. A multiple baseline design across subjects was used to study the effects of training on static and dynamic balance, physical... more
The effects of a 4-month physical activity program on physical fitness, balance, and ball skills were examined. A multiple baseline design across subjects was used to study the effects of training on static and dynamic balance, physical fitness, and the motor skills of catching and throwing. The subjects were eight 7- to 11-year-old, ambulatory, hemiplegic or diplegic cerebral palsy children. The results indicated slight overall improvement in physical fitness. The specific balance training was not effective, with improvements in dynamic balance noted in only one subject. The specific ball training improved target throw skill in all subjects, but catching skill scores varied greatly, with none of the subjects showing consistent improvement.
Research Interests:
This chapter outlines the approaches for supporting reading development in Finnish that have been developed on the basis of current knowledge on reading development and reading disabilities in Finnish. We discuss also the challenges that... more
This chapter outlines the approaches for supporting reading development in Finnish that have been developed on the basis of current knowledge on reading development and reading disabilities in Finnish. We discuss also the challenges that the features of Finnish language and orthography pose for the reader at various points of development. We also describe the means for supporting the acquisition of the earliest milestones in reading development, that are being used widely within the Finnish elementary schools, and that have been based on findings of a large longitudinal research project (Jyvaskyla Longitudinal Study of Dyslexia, JLD). Although the knowledge on the development of reading fluency is still scarce, we outline also the research approaches aiming at developing efficient means for supporting readers struggling with fluency development, as well as aims for supporting reading comprehension using IT-based tools.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
GraphoGame Teacher Training Service is a mobile-based solution for providing teachers with scientifically validated pedagogical training in literacy instruction. In many African countries teachers currently have insufficient knowledge to... more
GraphoGame Teacher Training Service is a mobile-based solution for providing teachers with scientifically validated pedagogical training in literacy instruction. In many African countries teachers currently have insufficient knowledge to teach literacy in local languages and learning materials are scarce, especially for children with learning difficulties. As part of the GraphoWorld network, CAPOLSA/University of Zambia is developing new mobile-based method for providing in-service training for teachers in literacy instruction and assisting children with learning difficulties. GraphoGame Teacher Training Service was piloted in October 2014 in rural Zambia. An orientative workshop was given to 24 teachers who learned about literacy instruction methodology and then organized a GraphoGame intervention to randomly selected 2nd grade children either at home or in a school environment. Parents of the children in the home intervention group were also encouraged to play GraphoGame. GraphoGame learning analytics shows that both the children and their parents improved their word reading skills. Children who played GraphoGame performed better than their non-playing classmates in the EGRA letter-sound knowledge test at the end of the intervention. Teachers, parents and children were all motivated to use ICT-based literacy learning tools and their literacy skills levels show high demand for support services for literacy instruction.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Unlike many believe, accurate and fluent basic reading skill (ie. to decode text) is not enough for learning knowledge via reading. More than 10 years ago a digital learning game supporting the first step towards full literacy, i.e.,... more
Unlike many believe, accurate and fluent basic reading skill (ie. to decode text) is not enough for learning knowledge via reading. More than 10 years ago a digital learning game supporting the first step towards full literacy, i.e., GraphoGame (GG) was developed by the first author with his colleagues in the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. It trains the acquisition of basic reading skills, i.e., learning to sound out written language. Nowadays, when almost everyone in the world has an opportunity to use this GG, it is time to start supporting the acquisition of full literacy (FL). FL is necessary for efficient learning in school, where reading the schoolbooks successfully is essential. The present plan aims to help globally almost all who read whatever orthography to start from the earliest possible grade during which children have learned the mastery of the basic reading skill to immediately continue taking the next step to reach FL. Unlike common beliefs, support of FL is mostl...
Research Interests:
Possibly some of the most important skills that one can have are those needed to become fully literate. We all wish our children to reach such a goal. Unfortunately, the focus of attention in reading research has been on acquiring... more
Possibly some of the most important skills that one can have are those needed to become fully literate. We all wish our children to reach such a goal. Unfortunately, the focus of attention in reading research has been on acquiring readiness to sound out written language, i.e., the basic reading skills. Full literacy is the readiness to learn knowledge by reading. Thus, one has to be able to take two steps to reach full literacy. Indications related to both of these steps can be observe in the brain. This may be easiest when we observe the brain activity of a learner who faces difficulties in taking these steps. In fact, the serious difficulty of taking the first step can be observed soon after birth, shown below as a summary of relevant details from the paper published earlier in this journal. The step from a basic reading skill to reading comprehension requires that one must learn to read for the mediating meanings of the text, i.e., its morphological information, on top of the pho...
Research Interests:
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... more
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 located near to or in genes involved in neuronal migration/axon guidance (NM/AG) or loci implicated in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). A prominent theory of RD etiology posits that it involves disturbed neuronal migration, while potential links between RD-ASD have not been extensively investigated. To improve power to identify associated loci, we up-weighted variants involved in NM/AG or ASD, separately, and performed a new Hypothesis-Driven (HD)–GWAS. The approach was applied to a Toronto RD sample and a meta-analysis of the GenLang Consortium. For the Toronto sample (n = 624), no SNPs reached significance; however, by gene-set analysis,...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Literacy, Multilingualism, Political Science, Orthography, Schools, and 15 moreSociocultural Evolution, Literacy development, Indigenous language, Applied Developmental Psychology, Sahara, Africanisation of Education, Literacy Instruction, Medium of Instruction, Applied Developmental Science, Oppimateriaali, Educational Policy, Afrikka, Koulutuspolitiikka, Innovation, and Alkuperäiskansat
NMI-Bulletinin numerossa 1/2007 esiteltiin Niilo Mäki Instituutin ja Jyväskylän yliopiston yhteistyössä aloittamaa LukiMat-hanketta. LukiMat-hankkeen tavoitteena on kehittää tietoverkkovälitteisiä arviointija tukitoimia lukemisen ja... more
NMI-Bulletinin numerossa 1/2007 esiteltiin Niilo Mäki Instituutin ja Jyväskylän yliopiston yhteistyössä aloittamaa LukiMat-hanketta. LukiMat-hankkeen tavoitteena on kehittää tietoverkkovälitteisiä arviointija tukitoimia lukemisen ja matematiikan oppimisvaikeuksiin sekä tarjota opettajille, erityisopettajille ja vanhemmille tietoa oppimisvaikeuksista ja niiden voittamisesta. Kuvaamme tässä artikkelissa, mitä LukiMatissa on saatu tähän mennessä aikaan. Artikkelin alussa esitellään 9.11.2007 avautunut LukiMat-verkkopalvelu ja tämän jälkeen tuodaan esiin mahdollisuuksia, joita sivustolla avautuu lasten lukemisen ja matematiikan taitojen harjoittamiseen. Lopuksi luodaan ennakoiva katsaus LukiMat-hankkeen vuoteen 2008.
Research Interests:
Developmental dyslexia (DD) is a learning disorder affecting the ability to read, with a heritability of 40–60%. A notable part of this heritability remains unexplained, and large genetic studies are warranted to identify new... more
Developmental dyslexia (DD) is a learning disorder affecting the ability to read, with a heritability of 40–60%. A notable part of this heritability remains unexplained, and large genetic studies are warranted to identify new susceptibility genes and clarify the genetic bases of dyslexia. We carried out a genome-wide association study (GWAS) on 2274 dyslexia cases and 6272 controls, testing associations at the single variant, gene, and pathway level, and estimating heritability using single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data. We also calculated polygenic scores (PGSs) based on large-scale GWAS data for different neuropsychiatric disorders and cortical brain measures, educational attainment, and fluid intelligence, testing them for association with dyslexia status in our sample. We observed statistically significant (p < 2.8 × 10−6) enrichment of associations at the gene level, forLOC388780(20p13; uncharacterized gene), and forVEPH1(3q25), a gene implicated in brain development. ...
Research Interests:
ABSTRACTReading and writing are crucial for many aspects of modern life but up to 1 in 10 children are affected by dyslexia [1, 2], which can persist into adulthood. Family studies of dyslexia suggest heritability up to 70% [3, 4], yet no... more
ABSTRACTReading and writing are crucial for many aspects of modern life but up to 1 in 10 children are affected by dyslexia [1, 2], which can persist into adulthood. Family studies of dyslexia suggest heritability up to 70% [3, 4], yet no convincing genetic markers have been found due to limited study power [5]. Here, we present a genome-wide association study representing a 20-fold increase in sample size from prior work, with 51,800 adults self-reporting a dyslexia diagnosis and 1,087,070 controls. We identified 42 independent genome-wide significant loci: 17 are in genes linked to or pleiotropic with cognitive ability/educational attainment; 25 are novel and may be more specifically associated with dyslexia. Twenty-three loci (12 novel) were validated in independent cohorts of Chinese and European ancestry. We confirmed a similar genetic aetiology of dyslexia between sexes, and found genetic covariance with many traits, including ambidexterity, but not neuroanatomical measures of...
Research Interests:
We used a randomized controlled trial to investigate if a mobile game, GraphoLearn (GL), could effectively support the learning of first graders (N = 70), who have severe difficulties in reading and spelling. We studied the effects of two... more
We used a randomized controlled trial to investigate if a mobile game, GraphoLearn (GL), could effectively support the learning of first graders (N = 70), who have severe difficulties in reading and spelling. We studied the effects of two versions of the game: GL Reading, which focused on training letter‐sound correspondence and word reading; and GL Spelling, which included additional training in phonological skills and spelling. During the spring of first grade, the children trained with tablet computers which they could carry with them during the six‐week intervention. The average exposure time to training was 5 hr 44 min. The results revealed no differences in the development of reading or spelling skills between GL players and the control group. However, pre‐training self‐efficacy moderated the effect among GL Reading players: children with high self‐efficacy developed more than the control group in word reading fluency, whereas children with low self‐efficacy developed less tha...
Research Interests:
Pinyin is an alphabetic script that denotes pronunciations of Chinese characters. Studies have shown that Pinyin instruction enhances both phonological awareness (e.g., Shu et al., Developmental Science, 2008, 11, 171–181) and character... more
Pinyin is an alphabetic script that denotes pronunciations of Chinese characters. Studies have shown that Pinyin instruction enhances both phonological awareness (e.g., Shu et al., Developmental Science, 2008, 11, 171–181) and character reading (e.g., Lin et al., Psychological Science, 2010, 21, 1117–1122) in Chinese children. In the present study, we provided a 3‐week Pinyin intervention with a computer‐based Pinyin GraphoGame to disadvantaged migrant children with poor Pinyin skills. A total of 252 first graders who were children of migrant workers in a large Chinese city were assessed to identify poor Pinyin readers. Fifty‐six 7‐year‐old children with poor Pinyin skills were selected and randomly divided into a training group and a control group, with 28 children in each group. The training group played the Pinyin GraphoGame for 3 weeks, while the control group received school instruction only during the same period. Results showed that the children in the training group outperfo...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Developmental dyslexia (DD) is one of the most prevalent learning disorders, with high impact on school and psychosocial development and high comorbidity with conditions like attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression,... more
Developmental dyslexia (DD) is one of the most prevalent learning disorders, with high impact on school and psychosocial development and high comorbidity with conditions like attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression, and anxiety. DD is characterized by deficits in different cognitive skills, including word reading, spelling, rapid naming, and phonology. To investigate the genetic basis of DD, we conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of these skills within one of the largest studies available, including nine cohorts of reading-impaired and typically developing children of European ancestry (N = 2562–3468). We observed a genome-wide significant effect (p < 1 × 10−8) on rapid automatized naming of letters (RANlet) for variants on 18q12.2, within MIR924HG (micro-RNA 924 host gene; rs17663182 p = 4.73 × 10−9), and a suggestive association on 8q12.3 within NKAIN3 (encoding a cation transporter; rs16928927, p = 2.25 × 10−8). rs17663182 (18q12.2) also showed...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The purposes of this study were to investigate (a) whether children in families with a positive history of dyslexia were more likely to show delays in language development than children without family risk and (b) whether a delayed onset... more
The purposes of this study were to investigate (a) whether children in families with a positive history of dyslexia were more likely to show delays in language development than children without family risk and (b) whether a delayed onset of expressive language (late talking) predicted later language development. We analyzed the language development of 200 children longitudinally at 14, 24, 30, and 42 months and assessed their symbolic play at 14 months. Half of the children ( N =106) were from families with a history of dyslexia (the Dyslexia Risk [DR] group), and other children served as age-matched controls. Parental reports and structured tests were used to assess children’s receptive and expressive language and symbolic play. No differences emerged between the two groups in receptive language, symbolic play, or on the Bayley MDI. The groups, however, diverged in expressive language measures. The maximum sentence length at 2 years and object naming and inflectional morphology ski...
Research Interests: Genetics, Psychology, Cognitive Science, Developmental Psychology, Language Acquisition, and 15 moreChild Development, Statistical Analysis, Symbolism, Language Development, Linguistics, Comparative Study, Dyslexia, Medicine, Speech, Humans, Clinical Sciences, Risk Factor, Expressive Language, Nino, and Speech Language and Hearing Sciences
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Attention, Electroencephalography, Adolescent, Medicine, Information Processing, and 15 moreHearing, Brain, Humans, Female, Male, Key words, Event Related Potentials, Medical Physiology, Clinical Sciences, Mismatch Negativity, Adult, Analysis of Variance, Auditory evoked Potentials, Neurosciences, and Acoustic Stimulation
Research Interests:
Un enseignement systematique des relations graphophonologiques (le decodage) est necessaire pour apprendre a lire. Des outils numeriques, tel que GraphoGame, un logiciel audiovisuel finlandais, peuvent faciliter la mise en place et... more
Un enseignement systematique des relations graphophonologiques (le decodage) est necessaire pour apprendre a lire. Des outils numeriques, tel que GraphoGame, un logiciel audiovisuel finlandais, peuvent faciliter la mise en place et l’automatisation du decodage. L’article presente une adaptation en francais de GraphoGame sur tablette qui tient compte de l’orthographe de cette langue. Un premier essai de validation, qui a ete effectuee aupres d’enfants de CP et CE1 a risques de dyslexie, a permis de constater une progression en lecture de mots plus importante apres l’entrainement GraphoGame qu’apres un entrainement non-informatise ou un entrainement mathematique informatise. Ces premiers resultats suggerent que les outils du type GraphoGame presentent un interet pour les enfants a risque de dyslexie.
Research Interests:
This paper discusses how the association learning principle works for supporting acquisition of basic spelling and reading skills using digital game-based learning environment with the Finland-based GraphoLearn (GL) technology. This... more
This paper discusses how the association learning principle works for supporting acquisition of basic spelling and reading skills using digital game-based learning environment with the Finland-based GraphoLearn (GL) technology. This program has been designed and validated to work with early readers of different alphabetic writing systems using repetition and reinforcing connections between spoken and written units. Initially GL was developed and found effective in training children at risk of reading disorders in Finland. Today GL training has been shown to support learning decoding skills among children independent of whether they face difficulties resulting from educational, social, or biological reasons.