Phonological and Semantic Priming Effects during Word Reading in Children with Hyperlexia

Choi, Kyung-Soon; Hwang, Mina

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Commun Sci Disord. 2006;11(1): 81-94.

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

최경순(Kyung-Soon Choi)| 황민아(Mina Hwang)

ABSTRACT

We investigated whether children with hyperlexia exhibited priming effects during word reading in both phonological and semantic priming tasks. Seven children with hyperlexia and 7 normally developing younger children with matched reading skills participated in the study. In both tasks, the children were asked to read aloud visually presented target words which immediately followed auditorily presented priming words. In the phonological priming task, the priming words were phonologically similar or dissimilar to the target words. In the semantic priming task, the priming words were semantically related or unrelated to the target words. Reading time was measured from the presentation of a target word on a computer screen to the onset of word reading. In the normal children, both semantic and phonological priming effects were observed, whereas only phonological priming effect was noted in the hyperlexic children. In other words, the reading times of both children groups were faster when phonologically similar priming words were presented before the target words than when phonologically dissimilar priming words were presented. However, in the semantic priming task, only the normal children's reading times were faster when the priming words were semantically related to the target words than when the priming words were semantically unrelated to the target words. In the hyperlexic children, no significant differences were noted in their reading times depending on the semantic relatedness of the priming words. The results indicate that hyperlexic children do not appear to activate semantic information during word reading.