Rapid ‘automatized’ naming (R.A.N.): Dyslexia differentiated from other learning disabilities

Enhancement of brain event-related potentials to speech sounds is associated with compensated reading skills in dyslexic children with familial risk for dyslexia

“…The double-deficit hypothesis suggests the existence of three subtypes of reading disability: phonological deficits (like phonological awareness and letter-sound decoding), a rapid naming deficit that disrupts orthographic processing and reading speed, or both of the aforementioned types of deficits (Bowers & Wolf, 1993;Wolf & Bowers, 1999;Wolf et al, 2000). Rapid automatized naming (RAN) is a task of naming a series of familiar items as quickly as possible (Denckla & Rudel, 1976). RAN has been found to be linked to reading via lower-level cognitive processes, like automatization of (lexical) retrieval processes (Denckla & Rudel, 1976;see Georgiou &Parrila, 2013, and, for recent reviews).…”

“…Rapid automatized naming (RAN) is a task of naming a series of familiar items as quickly as possible (Denckla & Rudel, 1976). RAN has been found to be linked to reading via lower-level cognitive processes, like automatization of (lexical) retrieval processes (Denckla & Rudel, 1976;see Georgiou &Parrila, 2013, and, for recent reviews). Through the years, however, many -even contradictory -definitions have been suggested, including efficiency, automatization and quality of visual-verbal access, but also speed of lexical access, speed or automaticity of phonological access or lexical retrieval, and even general processing speed (for reviews, see Vukovic & Siegel, 2006).…”

“…Through the years, however, many -even contradictory -definitions have been suggested, including efficiency, automatization and quality of visual-verbal access, but also speed of lexical access, speed or automaticity of phonological access or lexical retrieval, and even general processing speed (for reviews, see Vukovic & Siegel, 2006). In dyslexics, early failure to develop automaticity in the lower-level retrieval processes impacts the reading process (Denckla & Rudel, 1976). In adult average readers, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during RAN revealed neural activation in the areas related to eye movement control, attention, and reading including the inferior frontal cortex, temporo-parietal areas, and the ventral visual stream (Misra, Katzir, Wolf, & Poldrack, 2004).…”

“…As a measure for phonological skills, a mean score of five tests in identification, production, and segmentation at the levels of phonemes, syllables, and words was used. For RAN objects (Denckla & Rudel, 1976), a reduced 30-item matrix was applied, and total time in seconds was used as a measure. The composite score for verbal short-term memory (STM) was comprised of the average of correct answers in the digit span and the memory for names -tests (NEPSY; Korkman, Kirk, & Kemp, 1998).…”

Auditory word identification in dyslexic and normally achieving readers

“…Phonological deficits are thought to underlie critical components of the reading process such as the learning of spelling-sound correspondences and the development of efficient word recognition (Bruck, 1992;Rack, Snowling, & Olson, 1992;Share, 1995;Stanovich & Siegel, 1994). Phonological deficits may also be causally related to specific kinds of language processing difficulties outside the domain of reading, including poor phonological awareness (Bruck, 1992;Liberman & Shankweiler, 1985;Manis, Custodio, & Szeszulski, 1993;Pratt & Brady, 1988;Swan & Goswami, 1997), inefficient use of verbal working memory (Berninger et al, 2006;Brady, Shankweiler, & Mann, 1983;Griffiths & Snowling, 2002;McDougall, Hulme, Ellis, & Monk, 1994), and slow access to the mental lexicon as manifested in naming tasks (Denckla & Rudel, 1976;Wolf & Bowers, 1999).…”