IQ vs. Phonological Recoding Skill in Explaining Differences Between Poor Readers and Normal Readers in Word Recognition: Evidence from a Naming Task.

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate whether differences inreading performance between poor readers and normal readers could bebetter explained by phonological recoding deficiences than IQ. A sampleof 132 Spanish children was classified into four groups according to IQ(<80; 81--90; 91--109; 110--140) and into two groups based on readingskills (poor readers vs normal readers). A word naming task was alsoadministered. We manipulated the word parameters (length, positionalsyllable frequency, and word frequency) and nonword parameters (lengthand positional syllable frequency) to find out whether students withreading disabilities would have more difficulties than normal readers innaming words under conditions that require extensive phonologicalcomputation. The results demonstrated that there were differencesbetween Spanish children who were normal readers and those who were poorreaders, independent of their IQs.