title: Degree of illiteracy and phonological and metaphonological skills in unschooled adults.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Estudos de Linguagem, Centro de Estudos Egas Moniz, Faculdade de Medicina de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal.
authors.forename: Clara de Santos
authors.initials: Cde S
authors.lastname: Loureiro
authors.forename: Lucia Willadino
authors.initials: LW
authors.lastname: Braga
authors.forename: Ligia do Nascimento
authors.initials: Ldo N
authors.lastname: Souza
authors.forename: Gilberto
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Nunes Filho
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Queiroz
authors.forename: Georges
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Dellatolas
mesh_terms: 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