The current study investigated which time components of rapid automatized naming (RAN) might predict group differences between dyslexic and nondyslexic readers (matched for age and reading level), and how these components relate to distinct reading measures. Subjects performed two RAN tasks (letters and objects) and data were analyzed through a response time analysis. Our results demonstrated that impaired RAN performance by dyslexic readers mainly stem from enhanced inter-item pause times and not from difficulties at the level of post-access motor production (expressed by articulation rates). Moreover, we also verified that overall RAN performance in dyslexics, and inter-item pause times, account for a significant proportion of variance in reading ability besides the effect of phonological processes. Therefore, it appears that underlying non-phonological factors may lie at the root of the association between rapid naming and reading ability. In normal readers, RAN performance becomes associated with reading ability only at early ages (i.e., in reading-matched controls), and in this case it appears to be the inter-item pause times of the RAN task that explain the association.
Purpose
Because reading is an audiovisual process, reading impairment may reflect an audiovisual processing deficit. The aim of the present study was to test the existence and scope of such a deficit in adult readers with dyslexia.
Method
We tested 39 typical readers and 51 adult readers with dyslexia on their sensitivity to the simultaneity of audiovisual speech and nonspeech stimuli, their time window of audiovisual integration for speech (using incongruent /aCa/ syllables), and their audiovisual perception of phonetic categories.
Results
Adult readers with dyslexia showed less sensitivity to audiovisual simultaneity than typical readers for both speech and nonspeech events. We found no differences between readers with dyslexia and typical readers in the temporal window of integration for audiovisual speech or in the audiovisual perception of phonetic categories.
Conclusions
The results suggest an audiovisual temporal deficit in dyslexia that is not specific to speech-related events. But the differences found for audiovisual temporal sensitivity did not translate into a deficit in audiovisual speech perception. Hence, there seems to be a hiatus between simultaneity judgment and perception, suggesting a multisensory system that uses different mechanisms across tasks. Alternatively, it is possible that the audiovisual deficit in dyslexia is only observable when explicit judgments about audiovisual simultaneity are required.
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