Word Length Effect in the Lexical Decisions of Poor Comprehenders

Hwang, Mina; Choi, Kyung-Soon

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Commun Sci Disord. 2011;16(4): 570-581.

Mina Hwang^` , and Kyung-Soon Choi^`

황민아(Mina Hwang)| 최경순(Kyung-Soon Choi)

ABSTRACT

Background & Purpose
Although there have been many studies investigating the on-line word-decoding process during reading in dyslexic children using various languages, studies on word-decoding skills of children with poor reading comprehension are limited. Poor comprehenders are supposed to have normal word-decoding skills based on their accuracy scores in standardized word-reading tests. Reportedly, for children learning to read languages with transparent grapheme-phoneme correspondence, their reading comprehension is highly correlated with reading speed but not with the accuracy of word-reading. Since the graphemephoneme correspondence of the Korean language is known to be transparent, it is possible that Korean poor comprehenders are slower in recognizing words relative to typically developing children even though the accuracy of word-reading is similar in the two groups.
Methods
Ten poor comprehenders and 12 typically developing children in 4th grade participated in the present study. The children performed a lexical decision task on words with two different lengths, two syllables or four syllables.
Results
The poor comprehenders were significantly slower and less accurate in their performances on the lexical decision task. The word-length effect was significantly greater in the poor comprehenders, as the differences in speed and accuracy of lexical decision between short and long words were greater in the poor comprehenders compared to the typically developing children.
Discussion & Conclusion
In a standardized reading test, the poor comprehenders only exhibited reading comprehension difficulties and were similar to the typically developing children in word-reading accuracy. However, the poor comprehenders’ performances in the lexical decision task indicated they also had difficulties in word-recognition. The authors of the present study suggest that, in a language with transparent grapheme-phoneme correspondence, like the Korean language, using word-reading accuracy as a measure of word-decoding skills may not be appropriate. The importance of cross-linguistic differences of reading development in diagnosing various types of reading disabilities is also discussed in the present paper.