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Development of Punctuation Sensitivity in Early Readers: An ERP Investigation of the Closure Positive Shift in Grades 3-5
Poster Session E, Friday, October 2, 11:00 am - 1:00 pm, Wangari Maathai
Aaron J. Newman1, Emily Wei1, Arjun Litt1, Saisha Rankaduwa1, Emma Abray1, Jade Kershaw1, Cindy Hamon-Hill1; 1Dalhousie University
A key challenge for developing readers is learning to use punctuation cues to guide their reading. Awareness of the role of punctuation, and its correct use, is predictive of future gains in reading comprehension[1]. This is mediated by prosodic awareness, suggesting that children use punctuation as cues to prosodic structure that in turn inform syntactic structure to facilitate comprehension[2]. Little work to date has investigated real-time measures of punctuation processing in developing readers. In adults, an event-related potential (ERP) component known as the closure positive shift (CPS) is elicited by both prosodic phrase boundaries in spoken language, and commas in written text. In spoken language, the CPS is elicited by intonational phrase boundaries[2]. In written language, a CPS is likewise elicited by commas marking phrase boundaries, and the size of the CPS was larger in participants who showed stricter adherence to linguistic rules when given a task to insert commas in text[3]. This suggests that the CPS is sensitive to individual differences in how commas are used to guide parsing. Given this evidence, we predicted that the CPS may emerge in developing readers as they develop sensitivity to proper punctuation, and that the size of the CPS may reflect sensitivity to punctuation in building syntactic representations of text. However, while the CPS has been shown to emerge by age 6 during spoken language comprehension[6], no published work to date has investigated the CPS during reading in children. We recruited children from grades 3–5 to investigate whether, and at what age, the CPS in response to commas emerged. This age range represents a transitional period between beginning and fluent reading, over which children show increasing use of syntactic awareness to support reading comprehension[1], as well as increasing awareness of the role of punctuation in reading[2]. Children were given standardized tests of reading ability and tests of punctuation sensitivity, followed by an ERP paradigm in which they silently read short, age-appropriate stories presented word by word. Across sentences, the stories contained commas at both syntactically appropriate and inappropriate positions, as well as missing commas at positions where they were required. Preliminary data (n=18) show a significantly larger positivity for incorrect than correct commas over posterior midline channels between approximately 300–500 ms, as well as evidence of a larger positivity for correct than missing commas over anterior midline channels in the same time window. Additional data collection is underway; with a full sample, we will additionally investigate relationships between the magnitude of these effects and grade, punctuation sensitivity, and reading comprehension. References: [1] MacKay, E.J.. (2023). hdl.handle.net/10222/82818 [2] Ryken, A. M., Wade-Woolley, L. & Deacon, S. H.. (2025). dx.doi.org/10.1023/a:1010443001646 [3] Steinhauer, K., Alter, K. & Friederici, A. D.. (1999). dx.doi.org/10.1038/5757 [4] Steinhauer, K. & Friederici, A. D.. (2001). dx.doi.org/10.1023/a:1010443001646 [5] Männel, C. & Friederici, A. D.. (2011). dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2010.01025.x
Topic Areas: Reading, Language Development/Acquisition