title: The role of rapid naming in reading development and dyslexia in Chinese.
abstract: We examined in a series of studies the mechanism that may underlie the relationship between Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) and reading (accuracy and fluency) in Mandarin Chinese. Study 1 examined the "arbitrary" connections hypothesis in a sample of Grade 2 children (N=182). Study 2 contrasted the phonological processing, orthographic processing, and speed of processing hypotheses in a sample of Grade 2 children followed until Grade 5 (N=72). Finally, Study 3 contrasted the same hypotheses in a sample of Grade 4 children with dyslexia (n=30) and chronological-age controls (n=30). The results indicated that (a) RAN is unrelated to Paired Associate Learning (PAL) tasks that tap the ability to form arbitrary connections between characters and their pronunciation, (b) controlling for nonverbal IQ and orthographic processing was sufficient to explain the RAN-reading accuracy relationship but not the RAN-reading fluency relationship, and (c) the observed differences between dyslexics and controls in RAN diminished after controlling for orthographic processing. Taken together, these findings suggest that RAN is related to reading accuracy (and partly to reading fluency) because children must access orthographic representations from long-term memory. Although accessing these representations is sufficient for accurate word recognition, it is not sufficient for fluent reading, which also requires efficient parafoveal processing.
authors.affiliation: Department of Special Education, National Taichung University of Education, Taiwan, ROC.
authors.forename: Chen-Huei
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Liao
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Ciping
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Deng
authors.affiliation: Department of Educational Psychology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2G5, Canada.
authors.forename: Jessica
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hamilton
authors.affiliation: Department of Educational Psychology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2G5, Canada.
authors.forename: Clara Shuk-Ching
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.affiliation: Department of Educational Psychology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2G5, Canada. Electronic address: georgiou@ualberta.ca.
authors.forename: George K
authors.initials: GK
authors.lastname: Georgiou
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002681:China; D003071:Cognition; D004410:Dyslexia / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D057567:Memory, Long-Term; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010700:Phonetics; D011930:Reaction Time; D011932:Reading
keywords: Chinese; Dyslexia; Orthographic processing; Phonological awareness; Rapid automatized naming; Reading