Conciencia fonológica y retraso lector en una ortografía transparente

Resumo

The current study examined the relationship in Spanish (v.g., a transparent orthography) between different levels of phonological awareness and reading disabilities. A three-group reading level design was used. A sample of 135 subjects were selected and organized into three different groups: 1) An experimental group of 45 reading-disabled children; 2) A control group of 45 good readers matched in age with the reading disabled; and 3) A control group of 45 younger children at the same reading level as the reading disabled. Three phonological awareness tasks were used to measure levels of intrasyllabic and phonemic awareness. The reading disabled group was equivalent to the younger reading-level-matched control group in the odd-man-out task. However, there were differences in the phonemic tasks (v.g., segmentation and inversion of phonemes) because the reading disabled group performed worse than the younger children. Overall, the children matched in age with the reading disabled group were superior in all phonological awareness tasks. According to these results, intrasyllabic awareness was not a relevant factor in explaining reading disabilities. However, these disabilities in a transparent orthography were better explained by phonemic awareness. These results were interpreted from a bi-directional perspective