Learning to read shapes the activation of neural lexical representations in the speech recognition pathway

It has been demonstrated that written and spoken language processing are tightly linked. Here we focus on the development of this relationship at the time children start reading and writing. We hypothesize that the newly acquired knowledge about graphemes shapes lexical access in neural spoken word recognition. A group of preliterate children (six years old) and two groups of beginning readers (six and eight years old) were tested in a spoken word identification task. Using word onset priming we compared behavioural and neural facilitation for target words in identical prime-target pairs (e.g., mon-monster) and in prime target pairs that varied in the first speech sound (e.g., non-monster, Variation condition). In both groups of beginning readers priming was less effective in the Variation condition than in the Identity condition. This was indexed by less behavioural facilitation and enhanced P350 amplitudes in the event related potentials (ERPs). In the group of preliterate children, by contrast, both conditions did not differ. Together these results reveal that lexical access in beginning readers is based on more acoustic detail than lexical access in preliterate children. The results are discussed in the light of bidirectional speech and print interactions in readers.