The 29th Association for Psychological Science (APS) Annual Convention

The 29th annual convention for APS took place in Boston from May 25-29, 2017. A student from Dr. Wang’s former lab presented her poster titled “Investigating protective and compensatory mechanisms in kindergarteners at risk for reading impairment who subsequently develop typical reading skills”. She found socioeconomic status (SES) was significantly higher among children who are at-risk for reading impairments in kindergarten, but develop typical reading outcomes relative to those who subsequently develop reading impairments. In addition, there was no different in vocabulary between this two groups of children in kindergarten, but in 2nd grade, the risk group developing normal reading skills showed significantly better vocabulary than the risk group developing reading impairment. This finding promotes vocabulary knowledge might be important to support reading development in at-risk group of children. Meanwhile, there was no white matter connectivity difference between the two group of children in kindergarten, but there was a fiber tract in the right hemisphere presenting differences between the two groups, which supports the right-hemispheric compensatory neural mechanism that may support reading development in at-risk group.