Symposium Summary

Introduction: Difficulties in learning to read, such as dyslexia, still remain an important problem in schools, despite the development in research and the advances in its understanding. It is necessary to deepen into aspects that allow us to understand the evolution of these difficulties, from the first risk indicators in childhood to adulthood, to design appropriate evaluation procedures and propose effective intervention procedures. In this context, the objective of this symposium is to gather a set of studies that can give the opportunity to reflect and discuss some aspects related to learning to read and its difficulties (dyslexia). Raising questions such as the role that reading efficiency, morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge play. Or the important role that this vocabulary can have in the detection of school children at risk of difficulties in learning to read at an early age. We should ask ourselves to what extent those difficulties and characteristics that are detected in early or later childhood in dyslexic schoolchildren are stable in adult dyslexics. Finally, and linking with all this, we end up with specific intervention in reading difficulties and we value the facilitating role of articulatory awareness, together with phonemic awareness, to induce the acquisition of the grapheme-phoneme relationship in school children with serious difficulties in learning to read. All these questions are some of the concerns that guide the work of the Unit of Attention to Learning Difficulties -UADLE- of the University of Salamanca. Methods: In these studies, nursery, primary, secondary and university students have participated. Mediation model, multiple regression models and single-case methodology have been used, among others. Results: The data allow us to reflect on the relevant role of morphological awareness in reading efficiency in Spanish language, knowledge of vocabulary in the detection of the early risk in childhood education, or the interesting role of articulatory awareness in the intervention. Discussion: Going deeper into these types of studies in the Spanish language helps to better understand the different faces that sometimes offer learning difficulties in reading, both young and adult dyslexics show.

Short CV

Director of the Unit of Attention to the Difficulties in Learning to Read and Write (UADLE) from the University of Salamanca. Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Psychology, Department of Developmental Psychology and Education at the University of Salamanca. Her teaching is related to learning difficulties in the Degree of Psychology and in different Masters. She is an author of books, chapters and scientific articles related to the processes involved in reading and reading difficulties. She has developed different intervention programmes for schoolchildren with dyslexia. She has participated as a researcher in about 20 funded projects. She was invited to join the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading. She has been a member of the Internal Valuation Committee in the validation process of the accreditation model of the Spanish National Agency for Quality Evaluation and Accreditation (ANECA). Also, she was a project evaluator in the Spanish National Evaluation Committee of the Interministerial Commission for Science and Technology (CICYT). She was invited speaker in various institutions such as the Benemérita Autonomous University of Puebla (Mexico), with recognition from the Undersecretary of Higher Education of the General Directorate of Teacher Training and Development of the State of Puebla (Mexico), for her contribution to the teachers training.