Oral Word Reading Research Articles

A positron emission tomography study of silent and oral single word reading in stuttering and nonstuttering adults.

Over the last decade positron emission tomography (PET) has been used extensively for the study of language and other cognitive and sensorimotor processes in healthy and diseased individuals. In the present study, [15O]H2O PET scanning was used to investigate the lateralization and functional distribution of cortical and subcortical activity involved in single word reading in stuttering and nonstuttering individuals. Ten right-handed male stuttering adults and matched nonstuttering individuals were instructed to read individually presented single words either silently or out loud. Subtraction of functional brain images obtained during each of the two reading tasks, and during a non-linguistic baseline task, was used to calculate within-group and between-group differences in regional cerebral blood flow by means of statistical parametric mapping. Increased activation in the left anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) was observed during silent reading in the stuttering speakers but not in the nonstuttering group. Because of the hypothesized role of the ACC in selective attention and covert articulatory practice, it is suggested that the observed increased ACC activation in the stuttering individuals reflects the presence of cognitive anticipatory reactions related to stuttering. During the oral reading task, within-group comparisons showed bilateral cortical and subcortical activation in both the stuttering and the nonstuttering speakers. Between-group comparisons showed a proportionally greater left hemisphere activation in the nonstuttering speakers, and a proportionally greater right hemisphere activation in the stuttering individuals. The results of the present study provide qualified support for the hypothesis that stuttering adults show atypical lateralization of language processes.

Participation of the left posterior inferior temporal cortex in writing and mental recall of kanji orthography

To examine the neuropsychological mechanisms involved in writing kanji (morphograms), we used functional MRI (fMRI) in 10 normal volunteers, all right-handed, native Japanese speakers. The experimental paradigms consisted of kana-to-kanji transcription, mental recall of kanji orthography and oral reading and semantic judgement of kana words. The first two tasks require manual and mental transcription of visually presented kana words into kanji, respectively, whereas the last two tasks involve language processing of the same set of stimulus words without recall of kanji. The transcription and mental recall tasks yielded lateralized activation of the left posterior inferior temporal cortex (PITC). By contrast, neither oral reading nor semantic judgement produced similar activation of the area. These results, in good accordance with lesion data, provide converging evidence that the left PITC plays an important role in writing kanji through retrieval of their visual graphic images, and suggest language-specific cerebral organization of writing. The set of fMRI experiments also provides new neuroimaging data on the cortical localization of basic language functions in people using a non-alphabetical language.

The reading and spelling performance of visually impaired Dutch elementary schoolchildren

The oral word reading and word spelling achievement of 147 visually impaired elementary school children was compared with that of their normal vision peers. On average, the literacy development of the visually impaired children appeared to be hampered by their visual defects. A disproportionate number of them performed in the lowest 10% class estimated for the general population. Being visually impaired, however, does not necessarily preclude someone from being a good reader or speller since 10-27% of the visually impaired children scored in the uppermost performance quartile. The between-groups difference for spelling was relatively small and approached zero towards the end of elementary school, suggesting that visual impairment only interferes with the acquisition of orthographic knowledge for a limited period of time. This, and the pattern in the reading data, indicate that the cause of the discrepancy is not so much in knowledge as well as in factors limiting handling speed. Using questionnaire data p...

Surface Dyslexia in Chinese

Abstract We report the oral reading performance of a Chinese anomic patient LJG, whose reduced confrontation naming was accompanied by impaired written word and spoken word comprehension. LJG's oral reading is significantly better than his comprehension of the same lexical items from written word and from spoken word input, although his oral reading is not flawless. We examined the effects of character regularity, frequency and concreteness on LJG's oral reading of singlecharacter monosyllabic Chinese words. LJG displayed impairment when reading aloud irregular Chinese characters that have an unpredlctabie correspondence between their components and the pronunciation of the character as a whole. This deficit was particularly severe for irregular, low-frequency, abstract items. In addition, LJG produced a number of oral reading errors in which characters were assigned pronunciations appropriate to a character component rather than the character itself. We characterize LJG's oral reading as surface dyslexia. We argue that the oral reading of irregular Chinese characters Is more prone to error than oral reading of regular Chinese characters following brain damage because of response competition at the level of phonological output.

Surface dyslexia in chinese

We report the oral reading performance of a Chinese anomic patient LJG, whose reduced confrontation naming was accompanied by impaired written word and spoken word comprehension. LJG's oral reading is significantly better than his comprehension of the same lexical items from written word and from spoken word input, although his oral reading is not flawless. We examined the effects of character regularity, frequency and concreteness on LJG's oral reading of singlecharacter monosyllabic Chinese words. LJG displayed impairment when reading aloud irregular Chinese characters that have an unpredlctabie correspondence between their components and the pronunciation of the character as a whole. This deficit was particularly severe for irregular, low-frequency, abstract items. In addition, LJG produced a number of oral reading errors in which characters were assigned pronunciations appropriate to a character component rather than the character itself. We characterize LJG's oral reading as surface dyslexia. We argue that the oral reading of irregular Chinese characters Is more prone to error than oral reading of regular Chinese characters following brain damage because of response competition at the level of phonological output.

Lexical semantic and associative priming in Alzheimer's disease.

Semantic memory impairment was investigated in patients with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD) using a threshold oral word reading task to assess priming of different lexical relationships. Healthy elderly controls showed significant priming for associatively related nouns (tempest-teapot) and also for nouns semantically related either because both designate basic-level exemplars of a common superordinate category (cousin-nephew) or because the target names the superordinate category of the prime (daughter-relative). AD patients, in contrast, showed preserved priming of lexical associates but impaired priming of certain semantic relationships. They showed no priming between words designating coordinate exemplars within a category, despite preserved priming of the superordinate category label. Findings are consistent with the view that at least part of the semantic deficit in AD is due to disruption of semantic knowledge that affects relationships among basic-level concepts, more than the relationships between these concepts and their corresponding superordinate category of membership.

Lexical semantic and associative priming in Alzheimer's disease.

Semantic memory impairment was investigated in patients with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD) using a threshold oral word reading task to assess priming of different lexical relationships. Healthy elderly controls showed significant priming for associatively related nouns (tempest-teapot) and also for nouns semantically related either because both designate basic-level exemplars of a common superordinate category (cousin-nephew) or because the target names the superordinate category of the prime (daughter-relative). AD patients, in contrast, showed preserved priming of lexical associates but impaired priming of certain semantic relationships. They showed no priming between words designating coordinate exemplars within a category, despite preserved priming of the superordinate category label. Findings are consistent with the view that at least part of the semantic deficit in AD is due to disruption of semantic knowledge that affects relationships among basic-level concepts, more than the relationships between these concepts and their corresponding superordinate category of membership.

Reading and Comprehension Disturbances of Kanji and Kana in Alzheimer's Disease and Frontotemporal Dementia

Abstract We assessed the kanji- and kana-word processing ability in eight Japanese patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD; n +AD0- 4) or frontotemporal dementia (RD; n +AD0- 4). All the patients underwent an experimental test that consisted of 20 kanji word oral reading, 20 kana word oral reading, 20 kanji word-picture matching and 20 kana word-picture matching. Frequency and notation familiarity of the employed words were controlled. The AD patients scored lower in word-picture matching than in oral reading on both kanji and kana modalities. The results suggested the dysfunction is restricted to the semantic system. The FTD patients could read most of the kana words, but showed deterioration on the performances of kanji oral reading, kanji word-picture matching and kana word-picture matching. We assume that the preserved ability of character-sound conversion enables the FTD patients to read kana words in a character-by-character manner, whereas the dysfunction of word lexicons results in the disturbed oral reading of kanji words, and the dysfunction of the semantic system causes the deficits in word-picture matching. These findings underline a possible disease specificity in the pattern of kanji- and kana-processing impairments.

Reading and comprehension disturbances of Kanji and Kana in Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia

We assessed the kanji- and kana-word processing ability in eight Japanese patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD; n +AD0- 4) or frontotemporal dementia (RD; n +AD0- 4). All the patients underwent an experimental test that consisted of 20 kanji word oral reading, 20 kana word oral reading, 20 kanji word-picture matching and 20 kana word-picture matching. Frequency and notation familiarity of the employed words were controlled. The AD patients scored lower in word-picture matching than in oral reading on both kanji and kana modalities. The results suggested the dysfunction is restricted to the semantic system. The FTD patients could read most of the kana words, but showed deterioration on the performances of kanji oral reading, kanji word-picture matching and kana word-picture matching. We assume that the preserved ability of character-sound conversion enables the FTD patients to read kana words in a character-by-character manner, whereas the dysfunction of word lexicons results in the disturbed oral reading of kanji words, and the dysfunction of the semantic system causes the deficits in word-picture matching. These findings underline a possible disease specificity in the pattern of kanji- and kana-processing impairments.

Semantic anomia without surface dyslexia

A computational model of oral reading developed by Plaut et al. (1996) proposes that reading aloud low-frequency exception words (e.g. yacht) relies upon a reading pathway that maps semantic representations directly onto output phonology. One prediction of this model is that, if the semantic reading pathway is damaged following brain damage, a pattern of surface dyslexic reading will be observed, characterized by frequent regularization errors when reading aloud low-frequency exception words (e.g. shoe → ‘show’). We report the oral reading of a semantic anomic patient (B.P.) who makes frequent semantic intrusion errors on confrontation naming tasks as well as semantic errors on word-picture and picture-picture matching tasks. Contrary to the prediction of the Plaut et al. (1996) model, B.P.'s oral reading of exception words, including his oral reading of picture names that are exception words, is intact. An important additional feature of B.P.'s language profile is that his oral reading of non-words is poor, suggesting that there is impairment to a phonological reading pathway. We argue that B.P.'s preserved oral reading reflects the operation of a lexical, non-semantic reading pathway.

Lexical–semantic deficits in two patients with dominant thalamic infarction

Two patients with dominant thalamic infarction, one in the tuberothalamic artery territory, the other in the paramedian artery territory, demonstrated language impairment limited to word retrieval difficulties in spontaneous language and structured naming tasks. Using a cognitive neuropsychological model of lexical processing developed in the study of patients with cortical lesions, we carried out a detailed investigation of their lexical abilities. Both patients demonstrated impairment restricted to oral and written picture naming and oral naming to definition, and spared performance on tasks of lexical comprehension, oral word reading, and writing to dictation, as well as syntactic comprehension and production. Naming impairment disproportionately affected lower frequency words, and word substitutions often corresponded to objects that were semantically-related to target words. We propose that our patients' word retrieval impairments reflect a failure of thalamic input to effectively engage the cortical networks subserving lexical–semantic processing, leading to degraded levels of activation as the semantic system interfaces with subsequent stages of lexical processing.

Morphological errors in acquired dyslexia: a case of mistaken identity

Morphological errors in oral reading have been used to support theories of lexical access in which root morphemes and affixes are independently represented in the orthographic lexicon. No support for such theories was found in this study, which examined the morphological errors made by two patients with different patterns of acquired dyslexia. Instead, it was shown that the probability of making a morphological error depended upon the absolute levels of imageability and word frequency of the affixed word and the relative levels of its root morpheme. These properties also affected the oral reading of words without affixes. It was concluded that so-called “morphological” errors reflect the properties of the reading system which influence lexical orthographic access for both affixed and unaffixed words and further reflect the functional level of the lexical pathways available to the patient.

Progressive aphasia and surface Alexia in Japanese

Abstract We report the reading performance of a patient, NK, with selective left-temporal atrophy and progressive aphasia. NK showed surface alexlc reading with the following pattern: flawless oral reading of kana words; a deficit in reading of two-character kanji words that was particularly severe for lower frequency words with an unpredictable correspondence between the component characters and their pronunciations; a predominance of kanji-word reading errors In which characters were assigned pronunciations appropriate to other words containing these characters. These features were predicted and are interpreted on the basis of (a) recent studies of patients with progressive aphasia in English, (b) recent analyses of surface alexia in terms of an interaction between word frequency and neighbourhood-based consistency of spelling-sound correspondences, and (c) characteristics of the Japanese kana and kanji writing systems.

Reading kanji without semantics: Evidence from a longitudinal study of dementia

Abstract The effects of the degenerative disease process on patterns of oral reading and reading comprehension of Japanese kanji words were investigated longitudinally in 3 demented patients, based on repeated administration of the 50-item Kanji Pronunciation-Comprehension Test (K.P.C.T.) and a battery of tests assessing a variety of cognitive abilities including semantic memory. On the K.P.C.T., all 3 patients showed essentially perfect oral reading until the very advanced stage of the disease process, which was in marked contrast to the progressive deterioration of their ability to comprehend the same set of words. These findings, consistent with some interpretation of lexical nonsemantic reading in English-speaking neurological patients, suggest the existence of an independent orthography-to-phonology transcoding procedure for kanji words. An interesting discrepancy in the pattern of word pronunciation performance, however, was noted between the Japanese patients (co-existence of near normal word namin...

Deterioration of word meaning: Implications for reading

We investigated six patients with progressive focal dementia or progressive aphasia, who showed impairments in knowledge of word meaning ranging from moderate to very severe. In all cases, a test of oral word reading demonstrated preserved reading of words with regular spelling-to-sound correspondences (e.g. MINT), but impaired reading of words with atypical correspondences (e.g. PINT). The level of success on these “exception” words was significantly related to word frequency, and the most common error was the assignment of a more typical spelling-sound correspondence. Various explanations are considered for this common association between loss of word meaning and a surface alexic pattern of reading performance.

Dissociation of mechanisms of reading in Alzheimer's disease

The role of spelling-to-sound correspondence rules in oral word reading was investigated by asking patients with Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and normal controls to read aloud pronounceable letter strings that do not happen to be real words. These pseudowords were of two types: those that have orthographically similar “heighbors,” and those that have no neighbors. The patients with AD were mildly impaired relative to the normal controls in reading pseudowords with neighbors, but were markedly impaired in reading pseudowords with no neighbors. The results are interpreted as favoring a model of reading in which words and pseudowords are normally read via the same lexical mechanism. An ancillary route involving the conscious application of spelling-to-sound rules is available only to cognitively intact readers.

Lexical and sublexical translation of spelling to sound: Strategic anticipation of lexical status.

Two experiments on oral reading of single words compared naming performance in pure blocks of nonwords or exception words with performance in blocks of randomly mixed nonwords and exception words. Ss named exception words faster and made fewer regularization errors when they were not also prepared for nonwords. These data suggest Ss inhibit or ignore the computation of assembled phonology when only exception words are expected. Ss named nonwords faster, but no more accurately, when low-frequency exception words were not also anticipated. Thus, Ss' readiness to execute assembled phonology appears to be adjusted in relation to the likely time course of retrieval of learned pronunciations, when the latter must be attended to

Children's and adults' reading of nonwords: effects of regularity and consistency.

The procedures used by novice readers to assemble pronunciations for nonwords were investigated. Children in Grades 1-3 read aloud consonant-vowel-consonant and longer monosyllabic nonwords. By the end of Grade 1, children displayed a good grasp of grapheme-phoneme (G-P) correspondences (e.g., ai, ow). Grade 2 and 3 readers increasingly used larger orthographic correspondences termed rimes (e.g., -ook, -ild). However, G-P correspondences determined most responses. Adults likewise used G-P rules when reading aloud nonwords and were more accurate at applying the rules. The strong reliance of Grade 1 and 2 readers on G-P rules was also demonstrated by their superior oral reading of regular words along with a tendency to regularize exception words (e.g., reading bull to rhyme with dull).

Mechanisms for accessing lexical representations for output: Evidence from a category-specific semantic deficit

We report the performance of a neurologically impaired patient, JJ, whose oral reading of words exceeded his naming and comprehension performance for the same words—a pattern of performance that has been previously presented as evidence for “direct, nonsemantic, lexical” routes to output in reading. However, detailed analyses of JJ's reading and comprehension revealed two results that do not follow directly from the “direct route” hypothesis: (1) He accurately read aloud all orthophonologically regular words and just those irregular words for which he demonstrated some comprehension (as indicated by correct responses or within-category semantic errors in naming and comprehension tasks); and (2) his reading errors on words that were not comprehended at all (but were recognized as words) were phonologically plausible (e.g., soot read as “suit”). We account for these results by proposing that preserved sublexical mechanisms for converting print to sound, together with partially preserved semantic information, serve to mediate the activation of representations in the phonological output lexicon in the task of reading aloud. We present similar arguments for postulating an interaction between sublexical mechanisms and lexical output components of the spelling process.

INTRASENTENCE CONTEXTUAL FACILITATION IN CHILDREN'S ORAL READING

Naturalistic studies have reported contextual facilitation of oral reading in passage‐length materials, but inconsistent results have been obtained in studies of sentence‐long contexts. While studies of intrasentence contextual facilitation effects constitute conservative tests of top‐down reading theories, failure to observe such effects raises serious doubts concerning the scope of those theories. The present study examined both quantitative and qualitative aspects of children's oral reading of words in isolation and in sentence‐length contexts. Results indicated that, although sentence‐long context did not facilitate reading accuracy, children did appear to be exploiting contextual information in their reading of sentences, with a relatively high proportion of reading errors being contextually acceptable. Introspective data suggested that children may have adopted different reading strategies in the two context conditions, using a slower, bottom‐up strategy for words in isolation and a fluent, top‐down strategy for the sentences.