Object‐naming deficits in developmental dyslexia

ABSTRACT This paper reports two experiments which focus on the object naming deficits of dyslexic readers. In Experiment 1, dyslexic and normal readers were asked to name objects depicted by pictures or following their spoken definition. Ten‐year‐old dyslexics named fewer objects correctly than other children of a similar age, performing only as well as a younger group of 8‐year‐old normal readers. This was true irrespective of the modality through which they were tested. In terms of naming latency, however, they were similar to comparison groups. In Experiment 2, nine‐year‐old dyslexic and normal readers performed as well as each other in a receptive vocabulary test in which pictures had to be matched to spoken words. However, once again, on a picture naming test, the dyslexics did less well than controls. We argue that dyslexic children are subject to verbal naming difficulties which cannot be accounted for by generally low levels of vocabulary knowledge. Their problems are attributable not to difficulties in semantic representation but to difficulties with the lexical‐phonological representation of spoken words they know. We propose that, in turn, these difficulties are related to their memory and reading problems.