The N400 in beginning readers

In an event-related potentials study of brain-behavior relations during learning-to-read, girls in first grade viewed known words, unknown words, difficult words, and nonwords presented in list form. Participants were divided into low-ability and high-ability reading groups based on standardized test scores. During the 300- to 600-ms epoch, low-ability readers lacked a substantial N400 while high-ability readers evidenced a large, widely distributed negativity to all word types. During the 600- to 1,000-ms epoch, high-ability readers showed effects of repetition while low-ability readers did not. The findings indicate a less selective neurocognitive word-processing system in children as compared to adults and suggest that the N400 may serve as an oblique index of the automaticity of lower level processing.