Dyslexia appears to be the most prevalent disability of students with special educational needs in many mainstream classes, affecting around 9.7% of the school population in Hong Kong. The education of these students is therefore of great concern to the community. In the present paper research into dyslexia in the Chinese language is briefly reviewed, with emphasis on the cognitive characteristics of dyslexia and its manifestations, in the hope that understanding the profiles of students with dyslexia may help to lay a solid foundation for assessment, curriculum development and intervention. Recent progress in the study of the cognitive deficits of Chinese-speaking readers with dyslexia in Hong Kong and the development of assessment and intervention framework for early identification and intervention is presented. These developments shed light on dyslexia in the Chinese language and provide grounds for further work on research and practice.
[Copyright of Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19404158.2010.495830]

Data of item responses to the Hong Kong Specific Learning Difficulties Behaviour Checklist from 673 Chinese primary grade students were analyzed using the dichotomous Rasch measurement model. Rasch scaling suggested that the data fit the model adequately with a latent dimension of global dyslexic dysfunctioning. Estimates of item attributes and person functioning on the same logit scale allowed the locations of person functioning to be interpreted in terms of item content. The substantial correlation between person estimates and external criterion measures (literacy and cognitive skills) provided support for the validity of the checklist in identifying children at risk for dyslexia. A common cutoff score based on person estimates across grades is suggested to replace the different cutoff scores based on conventional test scores for different grades. Implications of the findings for the use and the future development or refinement of the checklist are discussed.
[Copyright of Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19404150903524598]

This paper provides information on a measure that was developed to assess children's level of development at preschool and entry to school level, as well as their readiness for formal schooling. This measure - Who Am I? - is based on early copying and writing skills and is designed to identify the broad stages of development that underlie children's readiness for more formal learning in a school situation. Although originally developed in Australia, it has now been used in studies in a number of different countries, including Canada, and data from these studies provide some insight into the variations in development that are associated with different patterns of preschool provision and different ages of entry into an educational program. The results of these studies indicate that Who Am I? provides a valid measure of development across different language and cultural groups and can therefore be used as a tool to evaluate the effectiveness of different forms of early childhood provision, as well as children's readiness for more formal learning in a school situation.
[Copyright of Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19404150802380597]

Based on the data of a school-referred sample of Cantonese-speaking Chinese children who met the Hong Kong criterion of dyslexia, the authors estimated for developmental dyslexia of Chinese children aged between 6 and 10 in Hong Kong an incidence rate of 0.66 percent and a gender ratio of 3.29 boys to 1 girl over a four-year period. They also explored the differences in estimates based on this Hong Kong criterion that emphasizes cognitive markers with more conventional discrepancy- based criteria. In view of the possible biases in self-selection and underreporting in the data of the school-referred sample, the authors compared the figures with those derived from the sample of the normative study of the Hong Kong Test of Specific Learning Difficulties in Reading and Writing, which yielded an estimate of 9.7 percent in prevalence rate and boy-girl gender ratio of 2 to 1 over a one- year period. The differences in estimates based on the two samples and implications of the findings are discussed in light of the limitations of the study.
[Copyright of Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19404150802093695]