Are phonological processes separate from the processes underlying naming speed in a shallow orthography?

Abstract

Introduction. The present study examined the contributions of phonological decoding skills and rapid naming to the prediction of reading skills in Spanish-speaking children with dyslex-ia. Method. Thirty-eight dyslexic readers with phonological decoding processing deficits (mean age 9;11) were assessed on reading speed, reading comprehension, word and pseudoword reading, orthographic choice, and Rapid Naming (RAN). Correlation and regression analyses were conducted to examine interrelationships among these variables in Spanish, a language with a transparent orthography. Results. Supporting previous findings of the Double Deficit Hypothesis in transparent orthog-raphies, a significant relationship was found among RAN measures, reading speed, and or-thographic knowledge; and between phonological decoding skills and word reading accuracy. Both word reading accuracy and RAN tasks were associated with reading comprehension. Conclussions. In the present study, the predictive capability of RAN-Numbers to orthograph-ic knowledge and RAN-Letters to reading speed was the highest among all cognitive measures underlie reading.