Naming-speed deficits and phonological memory deficits in Chinese developmental dyslexia

The naming-speed deficit hypothesis in developmental dyslexia was examined with readers in a nonalphabetic script, Chinese. Twenty Chinese dyslexic ch ildren in Hong Kong were compared with 20 average readers of the same age ( CA controls) and 20 average readers of the same reading level (RL controls) in naming speed (naming digits, colours, pictures, and Chinese characters) and phonological memory skills (digit repetition, word repetition, and non word repetition). The results showed that the naming speed of Chinese dysle xic children was significantly slower than that of their CA controls in all the naming tasks, but similar to that of their RL controls. The dyslexic c hildren also performed significantly worse than both CA and RL controls in all the phonological memory tasks. These findings suggest that Chinese dysl exic children have naming-speed deficits and phonological memory deficits l ike their alphabetic counterparts.