Degree of illiteracy and phonological and metaphonological skills in unschooled adults.
Phonological and metaphonological skills are explored in 97 Brazilian illiterate and semiliterate adults. A simple letter- and word-reading task was used to define the degree of illiteracy. Phonemic awareness was strongly dependent on the level of letter and word reading ability. Phonological memory was very low in illiterates and unrelated to letter knowledge. Rhyme identification was relatively preserved in illiterates and semiliterates, and unrelated to letter and word reading level. Phonetic discrimination (minimal pairs) was fairly good and marginally related to reading ability. These results suggest that phonological sensitivity, phonological memory, rhyme identification, and phonemic awareness are distinctive cognitive processes, and that only phonemic awareness is clearly and strongly dependent on the alphabetical acquisition.
Loureiro
Clara de Santos
Cde S
Laboratório de Estudos de Linguagem, Centro de Estudos Egas Moniz, Faculdade de Medicina de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal.
Braga
Lucia Willadino
LW
Souza
Ligia do Nascimento
Ldo N
Nunes Filho
Gilberto
G
Queiroz
Elizabeth
E
Dellatolas
Georges
G
D000328:Adult; D001938:Brazil; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003071:Cognition; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010700:Phonetics; D011932:Reading; D013067:Speech Perception