Verbal fluency in relation to reading ability in students with and without dyslexia

Verbal fluency tasks, in which participants generate words during a set time, have been used in research and assessments of neurobiological disorders and impairments. Research on verbal fluency in dyslexia has shown impaired performance in semantic and letter fluency. However, studies report inconsistent results, and action fluency has not been examined in dyslexia. Current research has mainly examined verbal fluency in relation to executive functions, vocabulary, and phonological processing. The present study examined performance on letter, semantic, and action fluency in relation to reading ability in 42 students in higher education, of which 16 had developmental dyslexia and 26 had typical reading development. It was examined if verbal fluency can predict variance in reading ability when group, phonological awareness, and rapid automatized naming are controlled for. Results showed impaired verbal fluency in the developmental dyslexia group. Action fluency and group were significant predictors of reading ability, together explaining 73% of the variance, in a backward elimination regression analysis. The results point to a possible, unique connection between action fluency and reading ability; this connection is discussed based on their neurocognitive underpinnings.

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