Rapid-naming Research

Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, October 2015, Vol. 58, 1538-1548.

The authors of this comprehensive article looked as 1267 Dutch school children, aged 8 to 13.  They were classified according to Reading Disabilities (RD), Speech/language Impaired-only (SLI), both (RD+SLI), and typically-developing.  Interestingly enough, the RD-only group seemed to be more affected by Rapid Automatic Naming (RAN) difficulties than the SLI-only group. The two groups performed equally poorly on Phonemic Awareness (PA).  As might be expected, the co-morbid group was most severely impaired.

Another finding is that typically-developing children experience a discrepancy between rapid naming for digits and rapid naming for letters.  The article hypothesized that because  letters have both phonetic and alphabetic names, there may be interference in naming them, which does not occur with digits.  This discrepancy goes away with age and reading experience in typically-developing children.  However, in children with speech/language impairment (SLI), this discrepancy does not resolve as quickly.  It may reflect a developmental delay or perhaps less exposure to reading.

Phonemic Awareness (PA) was particularly delayed in the SLI-only group.  Short term memory may play a role in this weakness. The authors conclude:  “… this study emphasizes the relevance of RAN, and PA in particular, for the prediction of severe oral language impairments and reading deficits. The combination of RAN and PA proved most effective in terms of predictability for all three deficit groups studied, and the comorbid group in particular. With regard to the separate predictors, alphanumeric RAN seems to be the most likely candidate to differentiate between these two disorders.”  

Check out the original article!  Any errors are my own…there was a lot to digest in this JSLHR article!