Abstract
The study assessed how decoding and pronunciation times contribute to total reading time in reading aloud and how these measures change in the presence of developmental dyslexia. Vocal reaction times (RTs), pronunciation times, and total reading times were measured while 25 children with dyslexia and 43 age-matched typically developing readers read singly presented words and non-words that varied for length. Group differences were large for vocal RTs; children with dyslexia were increasingly slower as a function of condition difficulty (over-additivity effect); lexicality and length influenced RTs even when over-additivity was controlled for by z-score transformation. The group differences were also large for vocal total reading times, but the effect of over-additivity was smaller than that of vocal RTs and no selective influence of lexicality and length was detected. Pronunciation times showed very small individual differences and no over-additivity effect; children with dyslexia were more sensitive to the effect of lexicality and length than controls. To assess the contribution of the cognitive and sensory–motor compartments in determining group differences, we applied the difference engine model. As for RTs, the relationship between means and standard deviations closely supported the prediction of a general cognitive delay in the slow group, with no group difference in the sensory–motor compartment. The variance in total reading times was predicted by combining the model results for RTs with the linear relationship between pronunciation times and task difficulty. The results help clarify the internal structure of reading times, a measure largely used in clinical testing to assess reading rate.
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Notes
Although not explicitly predicted by the RAM (Faust et al. 1999), the opposite pattern may also occur and, indeed, it did occur in the present study; i.e., an interaction may be significant in the z-transformed values analysis but not in the raw data analysis. Apparently, controlling for the influence of global components can enhance the sensitivity of statistical comparisons and allow detecting differences that are masked in the raw data analysis.
Note that these transformations may be applied to open scales, such as time, but they are inappropriate in the case of closed scales, such as accuracy.
The group by lexicality by length interaction was significant in the z-score analysis on reading times but was difficult to interpret.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by grants from the Department of Health and Sapienza University. We would like to thank Athanassios Protopapas for useful comments on the manuscript.
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Martelli, M., De Luca, M., Lami, L. et al. Bridging the gap between different measures of the reading speed deficit in developmental dyslexia. Exp Brain Res 232, 237–252 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-013-3735-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-013-3735-6