Good Parenting: There is no definitive Rule Book

Any parent will tell you that there is no simple recipe for raising a child. Being a parent means getting hefty doses of advice – often unsolicited – from others.

But such advice often fails to consider a critical factor: the child. A new review of dozens of studies involving more than 14,600 pairs of twins shows that children's genetics significantly affect how they are parented.

Reut Avinun

"There is a lot of pressure on parents these days to produce children that excel in everything, socially and academically," says Reut Avinun of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

"Since children are not born tabula rasa, I felt it was important to explore their side of the story, to show how they can affect their environment, and specifically parental behaviour."

Most studies of parenting look at only the reverse, how parents affect their children's experiences.

To explore the flip side, Avinun and Ariel Knafo looked to twins. They reasoned that if parents treat identical twins, who share 100 percent of their genes, more similarly than non-identical twins, who share on average 50 percent of their genes, then it suggests that the child's genes shape parenting.

Indeed, across 32 studies of twins, they found that children's genetically-influenced characteristics do affect parental behavior.

As published in Personality and Social Psychology Review, they estimated that 23 percent of differences in parenting is due to a child's genetics.

The genotype-related differences are ways that the children evoke different responses from their environment.

For example, a child that is antisocial is more likely to elicit harsh discipline from parents than a more social child.

In one recent study, Knafo's research group found that boys with less self-control are more likely to experience lower levels of positive maternal behaviour.

For boys, but not for girls, a particular genotype – a polymorphic region in the gene that codes for the serotonin transporter – predicted mothers' levels of positive parenting and the boys' level of self-control.

"In other words, boys' genetically influenced level of self-control affected the behaviour of their mothers toward them," Avinun says.

Avinun and Knafo also found that children's shared environment – socioeconomics, cultural exposure, etc. – accounts for 43 percent of parenting differences.

And the non-shared environment – different schools, friends, etc. – accounts for 34 percent of the differences.

Importantly, the study's findings support the idea that parenting does not necessarily affect children in the same family, in a similar way.

Several factors affect the extent to which genetics influence parenting. Avinun and Knafo found, for example, that age was important, supporting the argument that the child's genetic influence on parenting increases with age.

"As children become increasingly autonomous, their genetic tendencies are more likely to be able to affect their behaviour, which in turn influences parental behaviour," Avinun says.

The research in total, Avinun says, "means that parenting should not be viewed solely as a characteristic of the parent, but as something that results from both parental and child attributes."

Therefore, any interventions or treatments to help parenting should consider both the parents and children, and could vary even within a family.

"The discussion of 'nature vs. nurture' has transformed into 'nature and nurture.' We now understand that most characteristics are determined by the interplay between genetic and environmental influences," Avinun says.

Because children are born differently, there never can be a general rule book for raising children, she explains.

"There isn't one style of ideal parenting. Each child requires a different environment to excel. So parents should not invest a lot of effort in trying to treat their children similarly, but instead, be aware of the variation in their children's attributes and nurture them accordingly."

More information:
The study, "Parenting as a Reaction Evoked by Children's Genotype: A Meta-Analysis of Children-as-Twins Studies" by Reut Avinun and Ariel Knafo, was published online on August 12, 2013, and is forthcoming in print in November 2013 in Personality and Social Psychology Review: psr.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/08/12/1088868313498308

Fathers who bond with children help keep Partner's Relationship /Marriage strong

Sharing housework is the key, as is open communication with your spouse and /or partner.

For dads aiming at marital bliss, a new study suggests just two factors are especially important: being engaged with the kids, for sure—but also doing a fair share of the household chores.

In other words, just taking the children outside for a game of catch won't cut it.

"In our study, the wives thought that the father's involvement with the kids and his participation in household work, are all inter-related and worked together to improve marital quality," said Adam Galovan, lead author of the study and a researcher at the University of Missouri, in Columbia.

"They think that being a good father involves more than just doing things involved in the care of children."

Adam Galovan

Galovan found that wives and partners, feel more cared for when husbands are involved with their children, yet helping out with the day-to-day responsibilities of running the household also matters.

But Galovan was surprised to find that, how husbands and wives divide the work, doesn't seem to matter much.

Partners, husbands and wives are happier when they share parenting and household responsibilities, but the chores don't have to be divided equally, according to the study.

What matters is that both parents are actively participating in both chores and child-rearing.

Doing household chores and being engaged with the children seem to be important ways for husbands to connect with their partners, and that connection is related to better relationships, Galovan explained.

The research was recently published in the Journal of Family Issues it can also be found on the MU News site.

For the study, the researchers tapped data from a 2005 study that pulled marriage licenses of couples married for less than one year from the Utah Department of Health.

Researchers looked at every third or fourth marriage license over a six-month period.

Couples indicated which spouse was generally responsible for completing 20 common household tasks— or if both or neither of them were responsible.

Fathers rated their involvement in their children's lives and mothers noted how involved they felt their husbands were with the kids. Both spouses rated how happy they were with how they divided household tasks and with their marriage.

Men and women differed in how they reported marital quality. For wives, the father-child relationship and father involvement was most important, followed by satisfaction with how the household work was accomplished.

For husbands, satisfaction with the division of family work came first, followed by their wife's feelings about the father-child relationship, and then the degree of involvement the dad had with his children.

Fathers and Teenagers: Fathers' Previous Desire for Children Affects Relationship

The relationships of fathers to their teenage children are apparently influenced by the nature of their previous desire for children.

The more acute that this feeling is, the more closely fathers engage with their children at an everyday level.

This is the conclusion of a study conducted by the Center for Gender Studies at the University of Basel.

This is the first time that a study has examined the perspectives of both fathers and teenagers regarding their relationship.

Diana Baumgarten

For her investigation, the sociologist and gender researcher Dr. Diana Baumgarten conducted a detailed evaluation of long interviews with eight fathers between the ages of 46 and 58, as well as with eight children between 16 and 21 years of age.

The respondents live in a common household in German-speaking Switzerland.

The questions to the men concentrated on approaches to fatherhood, everyday arrangements, and relationships with teenagers.

The teenagers had to report on the details of their daily lives and their relationships with their fathers.

"Equivalent," "Supplementary," and "Satellite" Fathers
One result of the study is that the fathers' earlier desire for children played a significant role in their relationships with their children.

The more aware the father was of his desire for children, the clearer perception the father has today of his relationship to the child.

Such "equivalent" fathers assume more restrictions and burdens upon themselves, such as a career trajectory that develops more slowly.

They are also more likely to see the teenager as an individual counterpart than those that the author describes as "supplementary" and "satellite" fathers.

Activities and Exchange of Views
In the relationship between fathers and their teenage children, the author encountered the "activity norm."

Especially fathers who are less present for their children on an everyday level have the entitlement to do as much as possible with their children.

While mothers tend to live their relationships with their children on an everyday level, fathers operate under the norm that they must always develop their relationship through special and extraordinary activities.

Another notable result is the great value accorded to communication and exchanges of views. Prior studies have made this point for mother-child relationships, and have disregarded the communicative value of fathers.

The author also found through interviews with fathers and teenagers that motherhood is depicted as the model of parental care and is often measured against fatherhood.

However, distinct concepts of fatherhood are also expressed in the study and thus, also concepts of masculinity.

Journal Reference:

1. Diana Baumgarten, Väter von Teenagern. Sichtweisen von Vätern und ihren jugendlichen Kindern auf ihre Beziehung. Budrich Unipress, 2013

Care-Giving Skills: Being a Good partner and a Good Parent

Being a good partner may make you a better parent, according to a new study. According to the researchers, the same set of skills that we use to be caring toward our partners is what we use to nurture our children.

The study sought to examine how caregiving plays out in families -- "how one relationship affects another relationship," says Abigail Millings of the University of Bristol, lead author of the work published online this week in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

"We wanted to see how romantic relationships between parents might be associated with what kind of parents they are."

Romantic Care-giving and Parenting
Previous research had looked at similar care-giving processes within romantic relationships or between parents and children, but rarely for both groups. "Our work is the first to look at romantic care-giving and parenting styles at the same time," Millings says.

Looking at 125 couples with children aged 7 to 8 years, the study, carried out at the University of East Anglia, examined a few factors: the way the couples are attached toward each other; the parenting styles they use with their children; and their "caregiving responsiveness."

Care-giving Responsiveness
Care-giving responsiveness is the "capacity to be 'tuned in' to what the other person needs," Millings says.

"In romantic relationships and in parenting, this might mean noticing when the other person has had a bad day, knowing how to cheer them up, and whether they even want cheering up" and, it's not "just about picking you up when you're down, it's also about being able to respond appropriately to the good stuff in life."

They found that a common skill set underpins caregiving across different types of relationships, and for both mothers and fathers.

"If you can 'do' responsive caregiving, it seems that you can do it across different relationships," Millings says.

Surprisingly, however, the researchers found that how you care toward your partner does not relate to how your partner behaves as a parent.

Millings also underscores that the data do not yet speak to what causes our caregiving toward our partners to be mirrored in our caregiving for our children, or if it's the other way around.

"It might be the case that practicing being sensitive and responsive to our partners, (by really listening and by really thinking about the other person's perspective) will also help us to improve these skills with our kids," she says. "But we need to do more research to see whether the association can actually be used in this way."

Single Parents
She points out that parents can have great relationships with their children without having a partner. Her team would therefore like to explore how caregiving and parenting relate to one another in other family structures.

If they find that improving care-giving responsiveness in one relationship does indeed improve relationship functioning elsewhere, it may be possible to use this idea to design a self-help program that enables people to improve their own personal relationships.

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Society for Personality and Social Psychology.

10 Things that New Mothers should know

Unfortunately, no matter how many books you read or how prepared you feel you may be, babies have their own special way of being and you have to adapt to it.

From your breastfeeding troubles and postpartum bleeding to baby’s colic and indecipherable crying. Here are some young mothers' most unexpected, unforgettable moments as a new parent.

Breastfeeding isn’t always easy.
If you’re not getting the hang of breastfeeding right away, don’t beat yourself up. Despite what you may have heard, it doesn’t always come so naturally.

Whether baby’s not latching right or you can’t seem to boost your milk supply, there are a number of potential frustrations and they’re all totally normal.

Don;t give up! Make sure you’ve read up on possible solutions to your breastfeeding problems; you may find that a small change to your routine is a real lifesaver.

It’s also important to realize that you’re not alone. First, talk to a health professional. Failing that chat with other new mamas or join a support group.

Most newborn clothes will go to waste.
Yep, despite all the sleep deprivation and constant exhaustion, those first couple months sure do fly by.

The likelihood that baby will get a decent run out of every newborn outfit in his closet is pretty slim.

So don’t go crazy registering for or buying up tons of adorable outfits in newborn sizes and whatever you do, don’t go nuts with newborn shoes either, cute as they are.

Baby will likely spend a lot of those first three months in and out of romper suits instead of fancy outfits, and you’ll be changing him so much, thanks to spit-up and diaper mishaps that most of them will hardly see the light of day.

Newborns poops are noisy and messy.
Noisy, smelly, and yes, sometimes explosive, newborn poops are certainly not for the weak-stomached.

Something else to keep in mind is that Baby’s poop will be pretty liquidy in that newborn stage, meaning it won’t take much to send it flying. Always carry wipes and a change of baby clothes.

Going back to work is hard.
Heading back to work is rough on every mother and missing your baby when you’re away can be overwhelming.

Before you head back to work, make sure you set up a childcare situation that makes you 100 percent comfortable, whether it’s a live-in nanny, a daycare system, or a friend or relative.

Then do what you can to stay in the loop during the day by asking your nanny to give you certain updates or calling the daycare periodically to check in.

Keeping the lines of communication open will make you feel less disconnected from baby.

"Getting to know and like" baby can take a while.
It’s totally normal to have a hard time adjusting to motherhood at first, not everything comes naturally and not everyone snaps into “mom mode” the second after they give birth.

Same goes for feeling that instant connection to baby. Give yourself a break, and remember your body is going through a lot of hormonal shifts after delivery that will eventually pass.

But do remember that if the feelings don’t go away, or if they’re too difficult to handle on your own, talk to a health professional who will help you get to the root of the problem.

You will bleed postpartum.
We know, donning those life-raft-sized pads in the weeks after delivery is no picnic for anyone, but at least you can take comfort in the fact that they’re only temporary.

Your bleeding should last only for a few days max and if it doesn’t, contact your doctor. After that, it may change to a discharge that will last up to several weeks.

You won’t have time for anything else.
While having a baby definitely uses most of your “me” time in the beginning, but you need to be able to set up a system with your partner or relatives, for doing things like basic chores and running errands.

Try devising a plan of attack well before baby arrives and vowing to stick to it as much as possible. Sure, it may be easier said than done before baby comes, but you need to make sure that some semblance of routine is kept up, if only to maintain your relationship with your partner and your own sanity.

You won’t always know what your baby's cry means.
It’s definitely frustrating and emotional when you feel like you’ve tried everything to calm baby and nothing works.

The good news is that you can be taught by a health professional and you’ll eventually come to learn exactly what baby wants the more time you spend with her.

Pay attention to the way the baby cries. A low-pitched cry often means she’s hungry, whereas a high-pitched one means she might be in pain, especially if she draws her knees up at the same time.

If her cries build in intensity, she may be tired and if she’s just plain bored, her cry may sound like a passing whimper.

Baby may have sleeping problems.
It can take a few weeks for baby to sort out the difference between night and day. If it continues too long then your health and your relationship with your partner will suffer. Seek advice as early as possible.

Take baby outside for at least an hour each day, the new experiences will stimulate her. Then, at nighttime, prior to going to bed, avoid any stimulation at all, no light, no singing, and no talking.

Sleep is a specialist subject and for more key information on sleep issues and their resolution contact Deirdre at Dream-Angus

Colic is a nightmare.
The dreaded colic (or reflux) affects up to 25 percent of infants. Several reasons can cause this and in most cases these have to be determined by a health professional.

Some colic /reflux goes un-diagnosed and is put down to a 'grumbling' baby or one that doesn't sleep but experienced health support professionals should be able to detect it.

Contact Deirdre at Dream-Angus for more information on Colic /Reflux, as well as breast-feeding, sleep and feeding.

Children: Positive Self Esteem

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ADHD’s Impact on Relationships: 10 Tips to Help

Solutions for ADHD in Relationships

1. Get educated.
Knowing how ADHD manifests in adults helps you know what to expect. As Orlov said, when you know that your partner’s lack of attention is the result of ADHD, and has little to do with how they feel about you, you’ll deal with the situation differently. Together you might brainstorm strategies to minimize distractibility instead of yelling at your partner.

In other words, “Once you start looking at ADHD symptoms, you can get to the root of the problem and start to manage and treat the symptoms as well as manage the responses,” Orlov said.

2. Seek optimal treatment.
Orlov likens optimal treatment for ADHD to a three-legged stool. (The first two steps are relevant for everyone with ADHD; the last is for people in relationships.)

“Leg 1” involves making “physical changes to balance out the chemical differences in the brain,” which includes medication, aerobic exercise and sufficient sleep. “Leg 2” is all about making behavioral changes, or “essentially creating new habits.” Which might include creating physical reminders and to-do lists, carrying a tape recorder and hiring help. “Leg 3” is “interactions with your partner,” such as scheduling time together and using verbal cues to stop fights from escalating.

3. Remember it takes two to tango.
Regardless of who has ADHD, both partners are responsible for working on the relationship, Orlov emphasized. Say a couple is struggling with a parent-child dynamic. A way to overcome this obstacle, according to Orlov, is for the non-ADHD partner to give away some of the responsibilities.

But this has to be a done in a thoughtful and reasonable way so you don’t set your partner up for failure. It requires a specific process that involves assessing the strengths of each partner, making sure the ADHD partner has the skills (which they can learn from a therapist, coach, support groups or books) and putting external structures in place, Orlov said.

Also helpful is generating ideas together about completing a project and “coordinating [your] expectations and goals.”

As you’re starting to work on your relationship, the partner with ADHD might initially react defensively because they assume that they’ll be blamed for everything. But this usually subsides “once they become more informed and less threatened and see that their partner is willing to take a chance [to improve the relationship] and make changes themselves” such as managing their own anger and nagging.

4. Set up structure.
External structural cues are key for people with ADHD and, again, make up another part of treatment. So it’s important to pick an organizational system that works for you and includes reminders. For instance, it’s tremendously helpful to break down a project into several actionable steps on paper and set cell phone reminders regularly, Orlov said.

5. Make time to connect.
“Marriage is all about attending to each other adequately,” said Orlov, who suggested that couples consider how they can better connect with each other.

This might involve going on weekly dates, talking about issues that are important and interesting to you (“not just logistics”) and even scheduling time for sex. (Because ADHD partners get easily distracted, they might spend hours on an activity like the computer, and before you know it, you’re fast asleep.)

6. Remember that ADHD is a disorder.
When untreated, ADHD might affect all areas of a person’s life, and it’s hard to separate the symptoms from the person you love, Orlov said. But “a person who has ADD shouldn’t be defined by their ADHD.” In the same vein, don’t take their symptoms personally.

7. Empathize.
Understanding the impact that ADHD has on both partners is critical to improving your relationship. Put yourself in their shoes. If you don’t have ADHD, try to appreciate just how difficult it is to live every day with a slew of intrusive symptoms. If you do have ADHD, try to understand how much your disorder has changed your partner’s life.

8. Seek support.
Whether you’re the partner that has ADHD or not, you may feel very alone. Orlov suggested attending adult support groups. She gives a couples course by phone and one of the most common comments she hears is how beneficial it is for couples to know that others also are struggling with these issues.

Friends and family can help, too. However, some may not understand ADHD or your situation, Orlov said. Give them literature on ADHD and its impact on relationships.

9. Remember the positives of your relationship.
In The ADHD Effect on Marriage, Orlov writes that “remembering the positives in your relationship is an important step in moving forward.” Here’s what one wife loves about her husband (from the book):

On weekends, he has a coffee ready for me when I wake up in the morning. He tolerates my “morning grumpies” and knows not to take any of my grousing personally until an hour after I get up. He shares my passion for random trivia. He has no problem with my odder personality quirks and even encourages some of them. He encourages me in my passions. His need to keep life interesting can really keep life interesting in a positive way.

10. Instead of trying harder, try differently.
Couples who try with all their might to improve their relationship can feel disheartened when nothing changes, or worse, when things deteriorate, as Orlov experienced first-hand in her marriage. Trying harder made both her and her husband feel resentful and hopeless.

What does it mean to try differently? It means adding ADHD-friendly strategies and knowing how ADHD functions.

It also means that both partners change their perspective. According to Orlov, the non-ADHD spouse might think that the ADHD or their partner is to blame. Instead, she encourages non-ADHD partners to shift their thinking to “neither of us is to blame and we are both responsible for creating change.”

Another common belief non-ADHD spouses have is that they must teach their ADHD spouse how to do things or compensate for what they can’t do. A better way is to think “I am never my spouse’s keeper. We will respectfully negotiate how we can each contribute.”

Having ADHD can leave many feeling defeated and deflated. They might think, “I don’t really understand when I might succeed or fail. I’m not sure I want to take on challenges.” Orlov suggested shifting this thinking to “My inconsistency in the past has an explanation: ADHD. Fully treating ADHD will enable greater consistency and success.”

People with ADHD also can feel unloved or unappreciated or that their partner wants to change them. Instead, Orlov suggested altering your perspective to, “I am loved/lovable, but some of my ADHD symptoms are not. I am responsible for managing my negative symptoms.”

Even though your past might be riddled with bad memories and relationship problems, this doesn’t have to be your future, Orlov underscored. You “can make quite dramatic changes” in your relationship, and “there is hope.”

ADHD’s Impact on Relationships: 10 Tips to Help | Psych Central

ADHD’s Impact on Relationships

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) can dramatically affect a relationship. Research has shown that a person with ADHD may be almost twice as likely to get divorced, and relationships with one or two people with the disorder often become dysfunctional. *

While ADHD can ruin relationships, the good news is that both partners are not powerless. There are steps you can take to significantly improve your relationship.

Below, Melissa Orlov, marriage consultant and author of the award-winning book The ADHD Effect on Marriage: Understand and Rebuild Your Relationship in Six Steps, discusses the top challenges in these relationships and the solutions that truly make a difference.

The Relationship Challenges of ADHD

One of the biggest challenges in relationships is when a partner misinterprets ADHD symptoms. For one, couples may not even know that one partner (or both) suffers from ADHD in the first place. (Take a quick screening quiz here.)

In fact, “more than half of adults who have ADHD don’t know they have it,” according to Orlov. When you don’t know that a particular behavior is a symptom, you may misinterpret it as your partner’s true feelings for you.

Orlov recalled feeling miserable and unloved in her own marriage. (At the time she and her husband didn’t realize that he had ADHD.) She misinterpreted her husband’s distractibility as a sign that he didn’t love her anymore. But if you would’ve asked him, his feelings for her hadn’t changed. Still, to Orlov his actions — in reality the symptoms — spoke louder than words.

Another common challenge is what Orlov terms “symptom-response-response.” ADHD symptoms alone don’t cause trouble. It’s the symptom plus how the non-ADHD partner responds to the symptoms. For instance, distractibility itself isn’t a problem.

How the non-ADHD partner reacts to the distractibility can spark a negative cycle: The ADHD partner doesn’t pay attention to their spouse; the non-ADHD partner feels ignored and responds with anger and frustration; in turn, the ADHD partner responds in kind.

A third challenge is the “parent-child dynamic.” If the “ADHD partner doesn’t have their symptoms under control enough to be reliable,” it’s likely that the non-ADHD partner will pick up the slack.

With good intentions, the non-ADHD partner starts taking care of more things to make the relationship easier. And not surprisingly, the more responsibilities the partner has, the more stressed and overwhelmed — and resentful — they become. Over time, they take on the role of parent, and the ADHD partner becomes the child.

While the ADHD partner may be willing to help out, symptoms, such as forgetfulness and distractibility, get in the way.

ADHD’s Impact on Relationships: 10 Tips to Help

PAS: Parental Alienation Ayndrome and Divorced parents

The American Psychiatric Association is contemplating adding something called "parental alienation syndrome" (PAS) to the new edition of the DSM, scheduled to be published in May 2013, and the question has launched a national lobbying in the US and letter-writing campaigns on both sides.

Angry letters and editorials should not play any part in a debate about mental health and custody disputes but the fact these are being listened to tells you most of what you need to know about the validity of PAS.

What is parental alienation syndrome? William Bernet, a professor of psychiatry at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and an advocate for its inclusion in the DSM-5, describes it as "a mental condition in which a child, usually one whose parents are engaged in a high conflict divorce, allies himself or herself strongly with one parent, and rejects a relationship with the other parent, without legitimate justification."

Recognising Parental Alienation

There is no doubt that an ugly divorce can affect kids' relationship with their parents or cause children to choose sides, often in anger. In fact, that probably happens more often than not.

But Bernet and others who argue for adding PAS to the new edition of DMS, the official catalogue of mental health, want to see it recognized as a legitimate mental health disorder because it will "spur health insurance coverage, stimulate more systematic research, lend credence to [the] charge of parental alienation in court, and raise the odds that children would get timely treatment."

In other words, they want to affix a name, some blame, and also a price tag on a broad range of child responses to a custody fight (some may be perfectly justified and some may not) in the hopes of expanding its use in court.

There are downsides to including PAS in the DSM. A minimum of three participants are needed to diagnose PAS therefore it looks less like a mental health disorder than an epidemic.

It assumes that one unbalanced person (the mother) brainwashes or unduly influences, a second unbalanced or suggestable person (the child) into telling lies about a third person (the father).

Simply because a number of parents have experienced the frustration of blocked visitation rights and unreturned phone calls, doesn't mean that this conduct is the result of a medical "syndrome."

Joan S. Meier, a professor of clinical law at George Washington University School of Law, has explained it this way:

"PAS is a label that offers a particular explanation for a breach in relationship between a child and parent, but insofar as that breach could be explained in other, more rational, ways, it is not in itself a medical or psychological diagnosis (a certainty) so much as a particular legal hypothesis."

Read more about PAS here

The Secret Powers of Time - Animated video

Professor Philip Zimbardo conveys how our individual perspectives of time affect our work, health and well-being. Time influences who we are as a person, how we view relationships and how we act in the world. View the full video of Professor Philip Zimbardo’s talk at the RSA.

Orthography: the relationship between written symbols and sounds

In our previous 2 blogs we discussed briefly the sounds of letters and the sounds found inside words; 'Print Awareness' and 'Phonics and Phonemics'.

Taking this a step forward, we would like to introduce you to another term that is often used in describing language and one that has a big part to play in the detection of Dyslexia and the difficulties a child may have in learning to read and spell in a specific language; Orthography.

Orthography

Orthographies are writing systems, the relationship between the words we speak and how we write that down. Conversely, it is how we interpret and speak the words and letters that we see written on a page.

Orthography in Languages

It may surprise you to learn that the orthography of some languages are easier to interpret and learn than others. The complexity of a language's orthography, or writing system, can be a significant contributing factor to the difficulties experienced by readers who suffer from Dyslexia.

Symbols in Language

Languages such as Chinese have very simple orthographies because it has a pictorial languagee. Their written language is based on symbols that represent a picture of the word. Dyslexia is unknown in China.

The difference in the complexity of language and it's symbols versus sound interpretation is best described as the depth of the Orthography.

Shallow orthographies
Shallow Orthographies have a more straightforward, one-to-one relationship between sounds (graphemes) and letters (phonemes), and the spelling of words is very consistent. Italian and Finnish, which are examples of shallow orthographies and consequently, children and new readers, have very little trouble learning to decode words and match them to their sounds.

As a result, children who wish to learn to read in those languages, do so relatively quickly and with greater ease. Most readers who suffer from Dyslexia and are learning to read in a shallow orthography, learn to decode words with relative ease. Unfortunately, they can experience more difficulty with reading fluency and comprehension.

The hallmark symptom of dyslexia in a shallow orthography is the speed of rapid automatised naming (RAN - the speed of recalling and naming an object, word or letter once it is recognised).

Deep Orthographies
Unfortunately, one of the languages considered to be 'deep' is English, as well as Arabic, for example. They do not have a one-to-one correspondence between sounds (phonemes) and the letters (graphemes) that are intended to represent those sounds. As a result, children learn to read more slowly and with the potential for introducing more difficulties.

Overcoming this difficulty
Research has shown that the symptoms of Dyslexia in a deep orthography are a deficit in phonological awareness and difficulty in reading at the word level. For these readers who suffer from Dyslexia, learning to decode words may take a long time but the good news is, that once some level of decoding has been overcome, many of these readers have relatively fewer problems with fluency and comprehension. This is the opposite of the 'shallow' orthographies.

Comparative Studies
Studies between German and English have shown that the greater depth of English orthography had a "marked adverse effect on reading skills" among dyslexic children.