Francisco Martos

Differences in Reading Acquisition Development in Two Shallow Orthographies: Portuguese and Spanish.

The present study examines the role of the relative transparency of Portuguese and Spanish orthographies in schoolchildren’s word recognition procedures. Both Portuguese and Spanish may be considered as transparent orthographies. However, mappings at the grapheme–phoneme level are more consistent in Spanish than in Portuguese. Four groups of Portuguese and Spanish children from grades 1, 2, 3, and 4, who had been taught to read using a phonics-based approach, were given a Portuguese and a Spanish version of three different continuous reading tasks: numeral reading, number word reading, and pseudoword reading. Reading time per item was measured and errors noted. Improvement in reading time was observed in both orthographies from grades 1 to 4. There were no errors in numeral recognition and few children made errors in reading the number words. In pseudoword reading, the Spanish children were faster and made fewer errors than the Portuguese children. Errors in pseudoword reading were scored as phonological when leading to the production of another pseudoword and as lexical when involving refusals and/or the production of a real word. Portuguese children made more phonological errors than the Spanish group, and there was no difference in the number of lexical errors. The results are discussed in terms of the role played by the differing orthographic transparency of Spanish and Portuguese in young readers’ word recognition procedures.

The influence of lexical and sublexical variables in normal and poor Spanish readers

The main aim of our study was to find out the effect of several lexical and sublexical variables (lexical category, lexical frequency, syllabic structure, and word length) in the acquisition of reading in a transparent language such as Spanish. The second goal of our study was the comparison of the effect of these variables in normal and poor Spanish readers. One hundred and forty children (aged between 6 and 12), twenty of whom were poor readers, were tested using a reading test of 306 items in which we balanced all the variables. The dependent variable was the percentage of correct responses in a decontextualized word reading test. Our results showed that all the above mentioned variables produced a significant effect on the number of errors made by the children. This pattern of results suggests no difference between the processes involved in the reading acquisition of Spanish and those implicated in deep orthographies such as English. Our results also showed no qualitative differences between normal and poor readers. The four variables studied showed the same behaviour in their effect on reading performance for both normal and poor readers, indicating that poor readers also use both the lexical and the phonological route. Our data suggest the universality of the dual route model, independent of the transparency or opaqueness of the different alphabetical languages.

Differences in Eye Movements Control among Dyslexic, Retarded and Normal Readers in the Spanish Population.

This paper reports a research which examined the relationship between dyslexia and eye movement control in Spanish speaking children. The study compared the eye movements recordings of 30 dyslexic, 30 retarded and 30 normal readers, aged between 7 and 14, in one ocular tracking task and two reading tasks which differed in their degree of reading difficulty. Within each group the subjects were divided into 3 subgroups of 10 in accordance with the following chronological ages: 7–9, 10–11 and 12 years and above. Dependent variables were saccadics (number, size and fixation pause), regressives (number, size and fixation pause), total number of movements and percentage of regressives over the total number of movements. The following results were obtained: (1) In the two reading tasks significant differences were found between dyslexic and normal readers and between retarded and normal readers in most of the parameters, no differences being found between dyslexic and retarded readers except in a few parameters; (2) in the ocular tracking task significant differences both between dyslexic and normal readers and between dyslexic and retarded readers were found in all dependent variables, no differences being found between retarded and normal readers at all, and (3) the age factor produced a significant main effect in the two reading tasks indicating a general improvement of eye movements as age increases but an interaction effect with reading disability in the ocular tracking task-indicating a deterioration in eye movements in the dyslexic group as a function of age-was also found. The results are discussed in the context of alternative theoretical explanations of developmental dyslexia.

Desarrollo del reconocimiento de palabras en lectores normales y retrasados en función de diferentes variables lingüísticas

ResumenEl objetivo fundamental de este estudio era determinar la influencia de las variables longitud, frecuencia lexica, categoria lexica y categoria gramatical en la adquisicion de la lectura de palabras tanto en lectores normales como en lectores retrasados. Ciento cuarenta ninos de edades comprendidas entre 6 y 12 anos fueron evaluados mediante un test de lectura de palabras aisladas. Los resultados mostraron un alto nivel de semejanza entre el desarrollo de las habilidades de lectura en espanol y el de otras lenguas con una ortografia mas profunda tal como el ingles. En cuanto a las diferencias entre lectores normales y retrasados los resultados mostraban la inexistencia de diferencias cualitativas entre estos dos grupos respecto a las variables estudiadas. Sin embargo, cabe destacar una diferencia significativa en relacion con la pauta de desarrollo de la adquisicion de la lectura de palabras; mientras que los lectores normales mejoran su ejecucion hasta alcanzar una tasa del 90% de respuestas corre...

The Sources of Error in Spanish Writing (Research Note)

The main aim of this study was to determine the pattern of errors in Spanish spelling. Specifically, we were interested in discovering if all Spanish words have similar levels of spelling difficulty or whether there are types of words that cause a high percentage of spelling errors. 972 children aged between 8 to 10 years were requested to write a short spontaneous story. Our objective was to analyse and to propose a classification system for the errors made by children in the initial stages of the acquisition of spelling skills. The results indicate (a) that the diverse forms of only 20 Spanish words produce 36 per cent of the spelling errors in Spanish, and (b) that substitution is the most frequent type of error (68 per cent of total errors), which occurs as a consequence of an inadequate knowledge of the rules of phoneme-grapheme correspondence. These findings have relevance for the teaching of writing in Spanish.

Efectos de facilitacion de repeticion y semantica en el reconocimiento de senales de indicacion y peligro

espanolEn el presente experimento estudiamos los efectos de facilitacion (priming) semantico y de repeticion en el reconocimiento de senales. Utilizamos tanto senales de indicacion como de peligro. Obtuvimos un claro efecto de facilitacion de repeticion: la repeticion de senales identicas produce respuestas mas rapidas y precisas. Sin embargo, no se encontro efecto de facilitacion semantica cuando se presentaban dos senales de la misma categoria (indicacion o peligro). Basandonos en los resultados encontrados, sugerimos metodos para mejorar la senalizacion. Proponemos procedimientos de presenalizacion y planteamos la necesidad de revisar las categorias de las senales de trafico forma que sean mas relevantes desde el punto de vista psicologico. Podrian, asi, aprovecharse las relaciones semanticas entre ellas con el fin de incrementar su eficacia. EnglishOne experiment is presented that studies repetition and semantic priming effects in the recognition of traffic signs. Both indication and warning signs were used. We obtained a clear repetition priming effect, showing that the repetition of identical signs results in faster and more accurate responses. However, no reliable semantic priming effect was found when two signs of the same category - indication or warning - were presented. We suggest possible ways of applying the results to the improvement of traffic signalling. We propose procedures for presignalling traffic signs and argue that traffic-sign categories should be revised in order to make them more psychologically relevant. This way, semantic relationships between them could be used as a way to enhance their effectiveness.

Son apropiadas todas las pruebas de valoración de la visión funcional

Resumen El interés de este estudio consistió en probar la validez del Procedimiento de Valoración Diagnóstica (PVD) del Programa para Desarrollar Eficiencia en el Funcionamiento Visual de Barraga y Morris (1986) y del Test para el Desarrollo de la Percepción Visual (TDPV) de Frostig (1984) del Programa para el Desarrollo de la Percepción Visual de Frostig, Horne y Miller (1984). El estudio se diseñó con la intención de comprobar si estas pruebas eran apropiadas para utilizarse con niños afectados de baja visión de entre 4 y 10 años de edad, independientemente de su cociente intelectual. Los resultados de este estudio muestran que existe una alta relación entre el cociente intelectual y los resultados obtenidos en las dos escalas; en cuanto a la edad en la que su aplicación es más adecuada, el estudio concluye que el PVD no debe administrarse a niños mayores de 6 años, a no ser quepresenten deficiencia intelectual. Estas restricciones en lo que respecta a la edad no son necesarias en el caso del TDPV.

How to evaluate the accident data for older drivers? Age, gender and gravity of accidents: a new estimation of driving frequency based on litres of fuel consumed

Published online: 2 May 2012 # Etrasa 2012 Abstract In order to assess the accident rate of older drivers and judge the severity of the figures in this and other age and gender groups, the analysis of a new estimation rate has been developed. The current re- search proposes a new pro rata estimation rate relating the raw data on number of accidents to driving fre- quency, taking into account the number of litres of fuel put in the tank. That is, the raw accident rates of older drivers are low, but the estimation shows a dangerous increase when their low driving frequency is taken into account. This new index shows that it is not only the pro rata accident rates of young drivers that are worrying. The strategies of older drivers (cautious driving) are unable to compensate satisfactorily for the deterioration in their psychomotor driving skills in order to guarantee safe driving. Previous studies have calculated the accident rate using subjective

¿Cómo valorar los datos de accidentalidad de los conductores mayores? Edad, género y gravedad de los accidentes: Una nueva estimación de la frecuencia de conducción basada en los litros de combustible consumido

Published online: 2 May 2012 # Etrasa 2012 Abstract In order to assess the accident rate of older drivers and judge the severity of the figures in this and other age and gender groups, the analysis of a new estimation rate has been developed. The current re- search proposes a new pro rata estimation rate relating the raw data on number of accidents to driving fre- quency, taking into account the number of litres of fuel put in the tank. That is, the raw accident rates of older drivers are low, but the estimation shows a dangerous increase when their low driving frequency is taken into account. This new index shows that it is not only the pro rata accident rates of young drivers that are worrying. The strategies of older drivers (cautious driving) are unable to compensate satisfactorily for the deterioration in their psychomotor driving skills in order to guarantee safe driving. Previous studies have calculated the accident rate using subjective