Is Rapid Automatized Naming independent of Phonological Awareness? An interventional Study

Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) refers to the ability to name quickly from left to right and up to down familiar pictures arranged on a matrix. RAN has been shown as a reliable predictor of variability in learning to read, as well as a causal factor in reading disabilities. However key questions remain about the specific impact of RAN on reading. Discrepancies still exist regarding whether RAN is independent of Phonological Awareness (PA), another well-established predictor of reading. On the one hand, some authors suggest that the impact of RAN on reading is mediated by PA (Bowey et al., 2005; Poulsen et al., 2012). On the other hand, others showed that these predictors are separated (Lonigan et al., 2009; Powell et al., 2007; Torppa et al., 2013). The purpose of the present study is to disentangle the question of the relationship between RAN and PA with an interventional design which has never been done before. Participants were 39 French-speaking second graders without pathological score in vocabulary or non-verbal IQ and without language impairment. Every child was randomly assigned to a treatment group receiving either a RAN-training or a PA-training. Over a period of two months, 25 minutes lessons in small groups took place at school twice a week. For each treatment, sequences of exercises were planned by gradually increasing the level of difficulty. Children were tested before and immediately after the intervention with experimental tasks (four RAN-objects matrices, a phoneme deletion task, a reading task and a task of spelling under dictation). ANOVA mixed measures were conducted. Concerning the PA measure, we observed that children drilled with PA outperformed children drilled with RAN at the post-test while children from the RAN group did not show any progress in PA from pre-test to post-test. Concerning the RAN measures, the analyses revealed that children drilled with PA did not show any improvement in RAN from pre-test to post-test while children from the RAN group enhanced their RAN-ability. We demonstrated for the first time the efficacy of a RAN-training. In line with our hypothesis, results show that RAN and PA are separated cognitive processes. Theses findings have practical implications. Indeed, a RAN-training could be a new pedagogical way to reduce the incidence of reading problems among young children and to treat reading disabilities.