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Published on: June 25, 2019
Lexical access and literacy in children with word-finding difficulties
1Childhood Development & Learning, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK. d.j.messer@open.ac.uk
Summary
Children with word-finding difficulties exhibit slow serial naming speeds, impacting literacy. Serial naming tasks involving letters and digits correlate strongly with reading and decoding abilities, suggesting structural task similarities.
Area of Science:
- Child psychology
- Neuroscience
- Speech-language pathology
Background:
- Investigating lexical access in children with word-finding difficulties.
- Examining serial naming speed and its relation to literacy.
Purpose of the Study:
- Assess serial naming speed in children with word-finding difficulties.
- Determine the relationship between serial and discrete naming tasks.
- Test predictions from the double-deficit hypothesis.
Main Methods:
- Eighteen children with word-finding difficulties participated.
- Naming and literacy tasks were administered at 8;6 years.
- Literacy tasks were re-administered at 9;8 years.
Main Results:
- Children demonstrated significantly slow serial naming speeds.
- Serial and discrete naming speeds were not strongly correlated.
- Serial naming of alphanumeric items showed the strongest literacy correlations.
Conclusions:
- Serial and discrete naming tasks measure different aspects of lexical access.
- Partial support for the double-deficit hypothesis was found.
- Task structure similarity may explain the link between serial naming and literacy.
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