Phonological Awareness, Rapid Naming, and Nonword Repetition Abilities in Children with Dyslexia in Grade 1 to 6

Abstract

Objectives: This study examined phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN), and nonword repetition abilities in children with dyslexia and typically developing children in grade 1 to 6. To examine the phonological processing abilities according to reading developmental stage, participants were divided into two groups: grade 1-2 and grade 3-6. Methods: A total of 78 children with dyslexia and typically developing children in grade 1-2 and 3-6 participated. All participants had no problems in nonverbal cognition and receptive vocabulary. Children with dyslexia had to score a standard score of 85 or less, and among the typically developing children those with a standard score of 90 or higher on the word decoding test of the standardized reading test were selected. Phonological processing abilities were tested using the phonological awareness, rapid naming, and nonword repetition tasks. Results: Children with dyslexia showed lower performance in phonological awareness, RAN, and nonword repetition tasks compared to typically developing children. In addition, it was found that all phonological processing abilities improved as the grade increased. There was an interaction effect on only nonword repetition, with no difference between children with dyslexia and typically developing children in grade 3-6. Conclusion: Even in Hangul, a transparent orthography, children with dyslexia had problems in all three phonological processing abilities. The effect size was the largest on the RAN between the two reading groups, so children with dyslexia were likely to have most difficulty on RAN. Finally, vocabulary ability in children with dyslexia would influence nonword repetition abilities.