Quando i "vicini" aiutano: effetti della numerosità dei vicini ortografici sulla lettura di parole in bambini con e senza dislessia

[Autom. eng. transl.] The study of the effects of the orthographic neighborhood (eg BREAD, DINNER, CASE, etc.) on word reading (eg DOG) can provide interesting elements to understand how dyslexia is characterized with respect to the typical process of learning to read. A 22 children with dyslexia and 44 normolectors of 9 years, matched to the first by gender, age and intellectual level, a task of reading aloud of short words (4-5 letters) was proposed, which were distinguished by frequency of use (high vs. low frequency) and the presence of similarly spelled words (no neighbors vs. at least 5 neighbors). While both groups read high-frequency words faster and more accurately, which indicates lexical access, only children with dyslexia are facilitated by the presence of many neighbors in reading low-frequency words. The effect of the neighborhood would therefore emerge especially when some parts of the reading process are not yet fully automated.