Effects of accelerated reading rate on processing words' syntactic functions by normal and dyslexic readers: Event related potentials evidence

In the present study, the authors examined differences in brain activity, a s measured by amplitudes and latencies of event related potentials (ERP) co mponents, in Hebrew-speaking adult dyslexic and normal readers when process ing sentence components with different grammatical functions. Participants were 20 dyslexic and 20 normally reading male college students aged 18-27 y ears. The authors examined the processing of normal word strings in word-by -word reading of sentences having subject-verb-object (SVO) syntactic struc ture in self- and fast-paced conditions. Data revealed that in both reading conditions, the N100 and P300 ERP components were sensitive to internal pr ocesses such as recognition of words' grammatical functions. However, the r esults revealed that fast-paced reading rate might affect this process, as was reflected in the systematic changes of amplitudes and latencies of both ERP components. In accelerated reading, a significant decrease of latencie s and increase of amplitudes in dyslexics were shown. It was also found tha t influence of fast-paced reading rate was realized in the full usage of th e word-order strategy in sentence processing. In turn, this fact confirmed the hypothesis concerning a syntactic processing "weakness" in dyslexia.