Stroop Interference, rapid automatized naming and reading ability in Chinese children

Abstract

Rapid automatized naming was a robust predictor of Chinese word reading among kindergarten and elementary grade students (Chan, Ho, Tsang, Lee, & Chung, 2006; Tong, McBride-Chang, Shu, & Wong, 2009; Yeung et al., 2011). The present study attempted to examine the relationships among Stroop interference, rapid automatized naming and reading ability among 106 Hong Kong children aged 7-10. Each participant was administered the Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices, a general processing speed task, rapid naming tasks, a phonological awareness task, a Stroop Test, and Chinese reading ability measures (a Chinese word reading task and a one-minute Chinese text reading task). Multiple regression results showed that the measure of Stroop interference significantly predicted Chinese text reading but not word reading after controlling for the contributions of age, IQ, processing speed and phonological awareness. The measure of Stroop interference and processing speed explained significant amount of unique variance in performance in rapid automatized naming tasks after controlling for age, IQ and phonological awareness. However, the measure of Stroop interference did not contribute unique amount of variance to Chinese reading measures in the context of rapid automatized naming. These findings were discussed in light of the relationship between automaticity and reading development among Chinese children.