Parafoveal processing in non-phonetic Chinese reading: evidence from children with and without developmental dyslexia

Abstract Efficient parafoveal processing is critical for fluent reading, yet its role in Chinese developmental dyslexia (DD) remains underexplored, particularly among those who learn the script without phonetic scaffolds. This study used the boundary paradigm to examine how parafoveal orthographic, phonological, and semantic information contributes to Chinese sentence reading. Ninety-one children from Hong Kong were divided into three groups: 30 with DD (Primary 4–6), 31 chronological-age-matched (CA; Primary 4–6), and 30 reading-level-matched (RL; Primary 2–3) controls. Eye movements were recorded to assess effects on fixation durations and skipping probability. Across groups, identical and orthographic–phonological (O+P) previews reliably reduced fixation times, highlighting an important role of orthographic information in Chinese parafoveal processing. Semantic previews also elicited first-fixation reductions, suggesting rapid but transient parafoveal access to meaning. Phonological-only previews yielded no reliable preview benefit, indicating that an isolated phonological match did not produce a measurable preview benefit in this non-phonetic instructional context. Group comparisons revealed a graded developmental pattern: CA readers showed stronger identical and semantic preview benefits than RL and DD readers, while the DD group differed from RL readers primarily in showing reduced skipping under identical previews. These findings suggest that skilled readers use high-quality parafoveal information more efficiently than struggling readers. The pattern observed in DD was more consistent with reduced or less automatized parafoveal coordination than with a clear qualitatively distinct processing profile.