Construção da tarefa de leitura de palavras e pseudopalavras (TLPP) e desempenho de leitores proficientes

Stimuli in tasks for neuropsychological assessment of word reading should be sensitive to psycholinguistic effects and to types of errors which may indicate impaired and preserved abilities in reading. The aim of this study was to present the process of construction of a word and pseudoword reading task for adults and evaluate the performance of profi cient readers in the task. Stimuli were selected from word lists, considering the criteria of frequency, extension, lexicality and regularity, and underwent an evaluation process between judges. For the assessment of performance, 35 children (M = 10.80; SD = .83 years) from private schools in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and 54 adults, divided in two groups: 10 or less years of study (n = 25) and 11 or more years of study (n = 29). The psycholinguistic effects of lexicality, frequency, extension and regularity were observed, indicating that the stimuli were appropriate. Performance in the tasks correlated signifi cantly and positively with education and reading and writing habits. In the comparison between groups, adults with lower education exhibited lower performance compared to adults with higher education and to children. Besides highlighting the infl uence of age and education of the participants, the data may help clinicians who wish to use this task in a more detailed assessment of word reading.