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Visual laterality in two reading‐related tasks
Author(s) -
Campbell Ruth,
Watson David
Publication year - 1983
Publication title -
british journal of developmental psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.062
H-Index - 75
eISSN - 2044-835X
pISSN - 0261-510X
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-835x.1983.tb00895.x
Subject(s) - spelling , psychology , laterality , reading (process) , homophone , sentence , cognitive psychology , lateralization of brain function , task (project management) , audiology , linguistics , developmental psychology , medicine , philosophy , management , economics
Nineteen English nine‐year‐olds from a single mixed‐ability school class were given two reading‐related tasks: a task which required spelling nonsense words to dictation (phonic spelling) and a written sentence classification task. Visual laterality (unilateral letter naming) was also tested. Significant intercorrelations emerged between performance on the phonic spelling task, susceptibility to homophones in the reading task and RVF letter naming. Reading ability also correlated with these scores. However, when reading ability was partialled out of the correlations, the significant relation between laterality and phonic spelling persisted. Performance on a (control) sentence classification task, while correlating with reading ability, failed to correlate with phonic spelling, or with susceptibility to homophones in the reading task or with RVF scores. We conclude that the mastery of reading involves a multiplicity of skills, only one of which (phonic skill) can be reliably related to cerebral lateralization: this may go some way towards resolving conflicting proposals on the relation between lateralization and reading skill.