The effect of phonological awareness on rapid a tomatized naming

Abstract

Background: Phonological awareness (PA) is a fundamental predictor of reading disability. However, researches on reading have indicated that PA assessment alone is not sufficient to prevent reading problems. Rapid automatized naming (RAN) has been suggested as another influential factor in reading deficits independent of PA. This study investigated the impact of phonological awareness on rapid automatized naming. Methods: This was a randomized clinical trial study in which 62 Pers an monolingu l first graders were recruited from 3 schools using convenience sampling. Inclusion criteria were lack of deficits with sensory-motor skills and knowledge of the Persian alphabets. Measures of PA and RAN were utilized. The participants were randomly assigned into ei her the intervention or the control group. The intervention group was divided into small groups of 4-6 children who rec ived thirty 40-minute training sessions in PA. T test, Mann- Whitney, and Wilcoxon tests were used for data analysis. Results: The results revealed that the RAN time was significantly reduced (p≤0.001), with a significant increa e in PA scores (p≤0.001). In addition, there was a significant inverse relationship between some of the measures of the phonological awareness subtests and rapid automatized naming (eg, phonemic blending & RAN (numbers): ρ=-0.52 with p≤0.001). Conclusion: The findings showed that in the initial assessment, PA and RAN had significantly improved by PA training.