Processamento fonológico e desempenho em aritmética: uma revisão da relevância para as dificuldades de aprendizagem

The phonological processing is traditionally associated with learning to read and write. Its components – phonological awareness, phonological memory and lexical access are the main predictors of performance in reading and writing and, defi cits in these areas are related to dyslexia. Recently, the relationship between the phonology and mathematics has also been demonstrated in the literature. The phonological processing is mainly correlated with the symbolic aspects of mathematics, such as the automation of arithmetic facts, arithmetic problem solving and numerical transcoding. The various aspects of symbolic processing infl uence the learning of digits and verbal labels that represents magnitudes. In addition, its defi cits can also cause impairment in mathematics, such as dyslexic children who also showed worse automation of the multiplication table. We analyze the main articles that address this issue, its methodological fl aws and major theoretical contributions. We suggest that phonological processing is the main mechanism shared between dyscalculia and dyslexia, and that it is related to the comorbidity between two disorders.