A developmental index of reading automatisation
Tatiana Coli, Daniela Gallo, Enrico Savelli, Giacomo Stella
The main aim of this study was to devise a specific test, suited to clinical settings, that could easily and directly measure the degree of automatisation of reading ability. Indeed, automatisation is widely acknowledged as a hallmark of developmental dyslexia. To pursue this goal, pronunciation latency in picture naming and corresponding word reading tasks were compared and the resulting discrepancy between these two related cognitive processes were used as an index of reading automatisation. Analysing the developmental trajectory of this phenomenon during the primary school years, we were able to find out when the advantage of reading over naming takes place and how much it increases over the years. Results lend support to our main hypothesis that in normal readers, reading ability gets automatised quite early on and the degree of automatisation of reading skill increases continuously, likely because of continued daily exercise. Moreover, it can be easily and directly measured in each subject. Accordingly, we also investigated the time course of this phenomenon in dyslexic readers and, as expected, while improving at a much slower rate, reading speed never outperforms naming speed in the first five school years. These findings may also have significant clinical applications in both the diagnosis and prognosis of dyslexia as well as in rehabilitation of reading difficulties.
Keywords
Dyslexia, Specific Learning Disorders, Reading Index.