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Factors that predict lexical processing in dyslexia

Robert Davies, Brendan Weekes, Michael Thomson and Marian McCormick

Laboratory of Experimental Psychology, University of Sussex r.a.i.davies@city.ac.uk

Abstract

Relative success in the naming, reading and spelling of single words by children and adults is influenced by many factors. These factors include the frequency of a word's use, the consistency of its spelling-sound correspondences and its imageability (the word's capacity to evoke a mental image). We examined the effects of these factors together with the effect of the age-of-acquisition of a word (AoA) on the picture naming, reading, and spelling of children. We compared dyslexic children with groups of reading-age and chronological-age matched children of age-average reading abilities. We found effects of AoA on naming, reading and spelling that were modulated by the frequency or the spelling-sound consistency of words or by the reading ability of participants. We observed error distributions that revealed response competition in reaction to words that are recently learned; competition at a semantic level in picture naming and at a phonological level in reading and spelling. Our results are consistent with an understanding of performance in these tasks that sees skilled language developing through experience of semantic-sound mappings or of spelling-sound mappings. The acquisition of these mappings appears to require resolution of a range of candidates to the correct pronounciation, spelling or picture label.

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