Profiling of Graphophonological Semantic Flexibility in Typical Readers: A Cross-sectional Study

Area of Science:

• Cognitive psychology
• Developmental psychology
• Educational psychology

Background:

• Graphophonological semantic flexibility (GSF) is a key reading-specific cognitive skill.
• It enables simultaneous processing of phonological and semantic elements of text.
• Understanding GSF's development is crucial for typical reading acquisition.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the developmental trajectory of GSF in typically developing children.
• To examine age-related changes in GSF components like accuracy and speed.
• To explore the relationship between GSF and overall reading proficiency.

Main Methods:

• Ninety children aged 8-10 years participated.
• A web-based task assessed GSF by sorting word cards based on phoneme and meaning.
• Reading skills were evaluated using word, non-word, and passage comprehension tasks.

Main Results:

• Significant age-related improvements were observed in GSF sorting accuracy and index.
• GSF sorting speed also showed significant developmental differences.
• A positive correlation was found between GSF and both word reading and passage comprehension.

Conclusions:

• GSF demonstrates a clear developmental progression in school-aged children.
• GSF is significantly associated with reading and comprehension abilities.
• While GSF is largely independent of gender, sorting speed shows some variation.