Read Writ DOI 10.1007/s11145-011-9312-0
Development of spelling skills in a shallow orthography: the case of Italian language Alessandra Notarnicola · Paola Angelelli · Anna Judica · Pierluigi Zoccolotti
© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011
Abstract This study analyzed the spelling skills of Italian children as a function of school experience. We examined the writing performances of 465 first- to eighthgrade normal readers on a spelling test that included regular words, context-sensitive regular words, words with ambiguous transcription, and regular pseudowords. Based on the dual-route model (DRM), the regularity and orthographic complexity effects were considered to probe sublexical processing while the lexicality effect was taken to mark lexical processing. The analysis of spelling performances indicated that, among Italian children, both lexical and sublexical procedures are available since the first year of schooling. However, the two procedures showed different developmental trends. The DRM appears as a useful theoretical framework to describe the development of spelling in a relatively regular language such as Italian. Keywords Spelling acquisition · Orthography · Dual-route models · Lexicality effect · Regularity effect · Graphemic complexity effect · Development · Italian
Introduction The general aim of this study was to examine the spelling skills of Italian children as a function of school experience. We were also interested in assessing if the A. Notarnicola · P. Angelelli (&) Department of Psychology, University of Bari, Palazzo Ateneo, P.zza Umberto I 1, 70121 Bari, Italy e-mail:
[email protected] A. Judica · P. Zoccolotti Neuropsychological Unit, IRCCS Foundation Santa Lucia, via Ardeatina 306, 00179 Rome, Italy P. Zoccolotti Department of Psychology, University of Roma “La Sapienza”, via dei Marsi 78, 00176 Rome, Italy
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dual-route model, originally formulated to describe the spelling performances of adult individuals (e.g., Kreiner, 1992; Patterson, 1986; Perry, Ziegler, & Coltheart, 2002; see also Tainturier & Rapp, 2001, for a overview of this theoretical framework and relevant evidence) effectively accounts for the spelling skills of children at different stages of acquisition of a shallow orthography (Italian). The dual-route model assumes the existence of at least two processes for spelling: A lexical process, which relies on accessing word-specific memory (e.g., Barry, 1994) and may be semantically mediated (Hillis & Caramazza, 1991) or may involve direct connections between phonology and orthography (e.g., Patterson, 1986), and a sublexical process, based on phonological-to-orthographic conversion rules (Patterson, 1986; Tainturier & Rapp, 2000). According to DRM, spelling a verbally presented familiar word entails the activation of the lexical process: The phonological lexeme of the word, stored in the phonological lexicon, is retrieved; activation of the phonological representation leads to access to its semantic representation within the semantic system, and then to its orthographic representation in the orthographic lexicon. Some authors propose a second lexical process that directly associates phonological to orthographic representations, bypassing semantics (Patterson, 1986; Roeltgen, Rothi, & Heilman, 1986; Romani, Olson, Ward, & Ercolani, 2002). On the other hand, the sublexical process assembles the spelling of unfamiliar words or pseudowords (i.e., non-lexical units) making use of knowledge regarding the systematic correspondences between phonemes and graphemes. According to the theory, the sublexical process is based on two conversion processes: Acoustic-to-phonological and phoneme-to-grapheme. First, the individual segments and identifies the phonological string to be converted; then, graphemes corresponding to a plausible spelling are activated by means of a phoneme-to-grapheme conversion process that exploits sound-to-spelling correspondences (Patterson, 1986). Finally, the graphemic string (retrieved from the orthographic lexicon or assembled via phoneme-to-grapheme conversion processing) must be held in short-memory by the graphemic buffer. This maintains the activation level of the abstract letter sequences during the time it takes to convert it to specific letter shapes (i.e., the appropriate allographic representations, such as lower-case or upper-case script), leading ultimately to the production of the appropriate writing movements. According to DRM, irregular words (i.e., words which violate the most frequent phoneme-grapheme correspondences) must be spelt by the lexical process; words with regular sound-to-spelling correspondences can be processed by either procedure; and pseudowords can be spelt only by the sublexical procedure (e.g., Barry & De Bastiani, 1997). Therefore, performance on irregular words and pseudowords indicates the efficiency of the lexical and sublexical processes, respectively. By contrast, many connectionist models of spelling (e.g., Brown & Loosemore, 1994; Bullinaria, 1994; Olson & Caramazza, 1994) assume that irregular words and pseudowords are spelt by a single procedure operating over distributed representations of orthographic and phonological units. Parallel distributed processing (PDP) theories of spelling assume distributed representations rather than localist phonological and orthographic lexemes, and distinguish the two processing pathways as
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The case of Italian language
semantically and phonologically mediated processes (rather than lexical and sublexical). Various development models have been advanced to account for the acquisition of written word knowledge. In a connectionist perspective (Ehri, 1998; Perfetti, 1992; Share, 1995), a single process (the phonological procedure) is supposed to provide the basic mechanism for acquiring the knowledge of written words (whether regular or irregular). Other development models are based on a dual-route perspective and propose that the two processes are acquired by a progression of stages, with beginners firstly relying on the sublexical processes and only subsequently shifting to the lexical one (Frith, 1985; Marsh, Morton, Welch, & Desberg, 1980; Seymour & McGregor, 1984). Accordingly, reliance on the sublexical route should be more evident at early stages of spelling acquisition with children prevalently using frequent phoneme-to-grapheme correspondences, even though not always lexically correct; evidence of lexical involvement should be prominent at later stages of acquisition. However, the central assumption of these models that literacy acquisition progresses through fixed qualitatively distinct stages has been severely criticized (e.g., Stuart & Coltheart, 1988). Several studies indicated that, at the beginning of literacy acquisition, there are individual differences in children’s spelling styles influenced by different factors, such as teaching methods, preschooler abilities, and orthographic regularity (e.g., Castles, Holmes, & Wong, 1997; Stuart & Coltheart, 1988; Treiman, 1984). For instance, Castles et al. (1997) gave three lists of items to spell (regular words, irregular words, and pseudowords) to 128 third graders. Variations in spelling styles indicated an early involvement of both lexical and sublexical procedures in spelling. Furthermore, recent cross-linguistic studies indicate that the ontogenetic acquisition of the different procedures is not the same across languages and point to the importance of orthographic consistency on spelling acquisition (for reviews see Caravolas, 2004; Sprenger-Charolles, Cole´, & Serniclaes, 2006). Note that orthographic regularity of a language can be different between reading and spelling. For instance, English is irregular in the grapheme-to-phoneme as well as in the phoneme-to-grapheme direction. However, other languages are relatively regular in one direction but not in the other. This is the case of French, German, Portuguese, and Italian, in which writing is often unpredictable but reading aloud is highly predictable (Ziegler & Goswami, 2005). Finally, other languages (like Czech, Finnish, and Turkish) are highly consistent in both directions (Caravolas, 2004). Orthographic consistency may influence how learners of different writing systems acquire spelling skills calling into question the universality of spelling development. In particular, it is possible that the acquisition of the sublexical and lexical procedures depend upon the degree of orthographic consistency of the different languages. With respect to the acquisition of the sublexical procedure, cross-linguistic studies indicate that the less regular the writing system, the less children rely on sublexical processing. This pattern has been reported comparing English children to Spanish, German or French children (for reviews, see Caravolas, 2004; SprengerCharolles, 2003). Moreover, the sublexical procedure is acquired more rapidly in regular than in irregular orthographies. For instance, Czech first grade children
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showed higher accuracy on a pseudoword spelling test than age-matched English children (Caravolas & Bruck, 1993). Similar data have been reported in crosslinguistic studies in which first grade children learning intermediate orthographies, such as German (Wimmer & Landerl, 1997), showed better pseudoword spelling skills than age-matched English children. With respect to the acquisition of the lexical procedure, data on shallow orthographies are controversial. In its original formulation, the depth orthographic hypothesis (Frost, Katz, & Bentin, 1987) maintained that, in highly regular languages, the prevalence of words with regular transcription would make the development of the lexical strategy unnecessary (e.g., Ardila, 1991; Ardila, Rosselli, & Pinzo`n, 1989). By contrast, other studies reported cases of double dissociation in which only one of the two spelling procedures was impaired (e.g., Iribarren, Jarema, & Lecours, 2001; Luzzatti, Laiacona, Allamano, De Tanti, & Inzaghi, 1998), supporting the availability of the lexical route also in shallow orthographies. Nevertheless, these studies did not provide direct evidence for an early use/reliance of the lexical procedure in young spellers. With regard to the relationship between the two processes, evidence comes from studies of acquired dysgraphic patients (e.g., Folk & Jones, 2004; Folk, Rapp, & Goldrick, 2002; Hillis & Caramazza, 1991; Laiacona et al., 2004; Rapp, Epstein, & Tainturier, 2002) as well as proficient spellers (e.g., Barry & De Bastiani, 1997). They show lexical influences on pseudoword spelling using different paradigms such as lexical priming or neighborhood effects (e.g., Barry, 1988; Campbell, 1983; Cuetos, 1993; Folk & Rapp, 2004). For instance, Rapp et al. (2002) described a brain-injured patient (LAT) who made phonologically plausible errors in writing words (e.g., “bouquet” spelt as BOUKET) containing low-frequency (yet lexically correct) spellings (i.e., /ei/ spelt as ET). Because these errors were phonologically plausible they did not appear to be generated by the lexical process; yet, because they contained low probability, lexically correct elements, they did not call on the activity of the sublexical process either. Rapp et al. (2002) proposed that many of LAT’s phonologically plausible errors consisted of the integrated output of elements generated by lexical and sublexical processes. Folk et al. (2002, 2004) investigated the interaction between lexical and sublexical processes in spelling in two dysgraphic patients. Lexical substitutions increased under articulatory suppression, indicating that when the sublexical process was disrupted, form-related word neighbors were more likely to successfully compete for output with the target word. In Italian, a peculiar type of spelling impairment, characterized by better performance on regular than irregular (ambiguous) words or pseudowords, has been reported in some aphasic patients (Laiacona et al., 2004, 2009; Luzzatti et al., 1998). The origin of this pattern of errors (referred to as “mixed dysgraphia”) might lie in the mutual interaction between the residual resources of the sublexical and lexical procedures; accordingly, regular words are spelt more efficiently since they can be processed along both routes. In other words, mutual interaction would occur in the presence of impairment to both lexical and sublexical processing. Converging results are reported in studies on normal subjects (Barry, 1988; Barry & De Bastiani, 1997; Folk & Rapp, 2004). Using a modified lexical decision task,
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The case of Italian language
Barry and De Bastiani (1997) tested the presence of a lexical priming effect on pseudoword in Italian spelling. Undergraduate students heard lists of words and pseudowords but had to write down only the pseudowords. Pseudowords with two orthographically inconsistent phonological segments were used: The segment [t∫e], which may be spelled in Italian as either CE or CIE (as in RADICE (=root) and SPECIE (=species)), and the initial segment [kw], which may be spelled as either CU or QU (as in CUOCO (=chef) and QUOTA (=quote)).1 Barry and De Bastiani (1997) reported lexical priming effects on pseudoword spelling in Italian: Participants were prone to spell pseudowords with the orthographic segment constituting the prime word they had just heard. The authors proposed that, despite its regular orthography, Italian is not spelled only sublexically and that lexical and sublexical processes operate interactively. All these studies provide support for the notion that lexical and sublexical processes share information during the spelling of a familiar word. According to Rapp et al. (2002) both the lexical and sublexical processes are simultaneously engaged by a phonological stimulus and activate candidate graphemic elements at the level of the graphemic buffer,2 where information is integrated. In turn, these graphemes activate lexemes that contain them via feedback links between the grapheme and lexeme nodes of the orthographic output lexicon. In this way, sublexical information strengthens the graphemes of a target word creating an advantage for the target over lexical competitors. As for the ontogenetic development of spelling, much less is known about the relationship between sublexical and lexical processing. Notably, only a few studies took into account the psycholinguistic characteristics of the stimuli such as frequency, regularity, age of acquisition, etc. With regard to French, Sprenger-Charolles, Siegel, Be´chennec and Serniclaes (2003) studied the development of sublexical and lexical processing from the middle of first grade to the end of fourth grade examining the effects of regularity and lexicality on spelling. Performances on pseudoword and irregular word spelling were used as estimates of sublexical and lexical skills, respectively. Sublexical spelling was acquired quite early: Children relied on phonologic-to-orthographic conversion rules even when indicators of lexical processing appeared. In particular, children spelt regular items (words and pseudowords) more accurately than irregular items across all grades tested and presented a ceiling effect for pseudowords (i.e., 92% of accuracy) by third grade. Moreover, regular words were never spelt more accurately than pseudowords indicating that the lexicality effect never favored word spelling. The authors concluded that, in French, sublexical processing is more prominent than orthographic processing at all grades and that the early reliance on the sublexical procedure has an important role on the acquisition of word-specific orthographic representations.
1
Here and following squared brackets indicate a phonological transcription, capital letters indicate the spelling of a stimulus and the asterisk marks non-lexical spelling errors.
2
In the original paper, the authors referred to a graphemic layer and not to a graphemic buffer, although the graphemic layer served the buffering function of the graphemic buffer.
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Similar results were reported for Portuguese, a language more regular than French, in a study on the early acquisition of spelling in first grade children in the middle (February) and end (June) of the school year (Fernandes, Ventura, Querido, & Morais, 2008). The regularity effect (regular words vs. irregular words processing), the grapheme complexity effect (simple vs. complex grapheme processing), the presence of regularization errors (resulting from the complete parsing of letter-to-sound correspondences), and the presence of errors minus one (resulting from the correct parsing of phoneme-to-grapheme correspondences, except for one grapheme-to-phoneme) were used to probe sublexical processing. Lexical processing was inferred from the presence of the frequency effect (high vs. low frequency word processing), the lexicality effect (words vs. pseudowords processing), and the analogy effect (analog vs. non-analog pseudoword3 processing). In February, there were both regularity and grapheme complexity effects indicating that children relied on sublexical processing. The lexicality effect found in June indicated that, by the end of first grade, children had begun to rely on lexical processing. The authors concluded that the spelling of Portuguese children initially involved sublexical processing but was increasingly influenced by lexical processing as literacy acquisition progressed. As in French, also in Portuguese the intensive reliance on sublexical mediation probably created the conditions for the consolidation of the orthographic representation of words. In both French and Portuguese, signs of reliance on phonologic-to-orthographic conversion rules appeared before signs referring to lexical processing but did not decline with the emergence of lexical processing. In fact, reliance on sublexical processing was evident at all grades tested. With regard to Italian, spelling received much less attention than reading. Studies on reading acquisition generally indicated the availability of lexical processing early also in the Italian language. Some of these studies examined the effect of the lexical status of stimuli, comparing reading performance on words and pseudowords (Brizzolara, Chiosi, Cipriani, & De Pasquale, 1993; Cossu, Gugliotta, & Marshall, 1995; Martini, Brizzolata, Pecini, Dinetti, & Negrin, 2002; Maschietto & Vio, 1998; Orsolini, Fanari, Tosi, De Nigris, & Carrieri, 2006). Other studies considered the effects of variables such as word frequency on the reading of words (e.g., Zoccolotti, De Luca, Di Filippo, Judica, & Martelli, 2009) and pseudowords (e.g., Marcolini, Burani, & Colombo, 2008) or the morphological structure of words (e.g., Marcolini & Burani, 2003). With regard to development of spelling, only two studies are available (Cossu et al., 1995; Tressoldi, 1996). Tressoldi (1996) analyzed the development of spelling skills from grade 2 to grade 8 by means of a spelling task including regular words (controlled for orthographic complexity and word frequency), regular pseudowords (controlled for orthographic complexity), and sentences containing pseudo-homophone contrasts (l’ago = needle vs. lago = lake): A task aiming to assess lexical spelling skills. In fact, reliance on lexical knowledge is needed to disambiguate 3
Analog pseudowords were created modifying the initial consonant letter of high frequency words. Thus, they had the same rhyme from which they were derived. For non-analog pseudowords, other letters were also modified in such a way to make it impossible to identify the word from which they were derived.
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The case of Italian language
between the two homophonic, not homographic, alternatives. However, note that successful performance also involves other abilities, such as conceptual and syntactic skills. Errors were much more frequent in the pseudo-homophone task than in pseudoword spelling across all grades. Tressoldi (1996) concluded that Italian children rely more on sublexical than lexical processing. This in turn delays the development of the lexical procedure. Cossu et al. (1995) studied the spelling of words and pseudowords in Italian first and second graders reaching different conclusions. There was a significant superiority in performance on words versus pseudowords already by first grade, indicating that Italian children are engaged in the construction of word-specific orthographic representations from the start of literacy acquisition. Overall, information from these studies does not allow a straightforward conclusion on the acquisition of the sublexical and lexical spelling procedures in Italian. Due to the widespread opinion that Italian is a highly regular language, assessment of lexical spelling is generally considered quite difficult. However, as stated above, like other alphabetic orthographies, Italian is more consistent in the spelling-to-sound than in the sound-to-spelling direction. Examples of unpredictable spelling are those cases in which a given phonological string has more than one possible orthographic solution, though only one is correct. Some ambiguities concern words with the phonetic group [kw], that may be transcribed by the orthographic sequences CU, QU, or CQU before O (e.g., [kwo] respectively in the words CUORE (=heart), LIQUORE (=liqueur) and ACQUOLINA (=watering)). Other ambiguities in spelling are more related to the pronunciation of specific linguistic areas, as in the case of the syllables [t∫e], [∫e], [dʒe], which may, or may not, require the i (e.g., [∫ena] is conveyed SCENA (=scene) and not *SCIENA, but [∫entsa] is conveyed SCIENZA (=science) and not *SCENZA4; for a detailed description of unpredictable spelling in Italian see Angelelli, Judica, Spinelli, Zoccolotti, & Luzzatti, 2004; Luzzatti et al., 1994; Zoccolotti, Angelelli, Judica, & Luzzatti, 2006). Phonological-to-orthographic conversion rules are insufficient to obtain the correct spelling of words with ambiguous transcription and phonologically plausible errors may be taken as an indication of impaired spelling along the lexical route (and over-reliance on the phoneme-to-grapheme conversion procedure). Accordingly, a child with poor lexical knowledge may write *SCUALO instead of SQUALO (=shark) since the correct spelling cannot be accessed when the child is relying exclusively on the sublexical procedure (Angelelli et al., 2004; Laiacona et al., 2004; Rapp et al., 2002). The aim of the present study was to investigate the acquisition of the sublexical and lexical spelling procedures, and their possible interaction, in Italian children. We were particularly interested in evaluating if the lexical procedure is available in young spellers, despite the high consistency of the print-to-sound mapping of this 4
Italian words with ambiguous transcription are both words with common and uncommon sound-tospelling mapping. For instance, among the words with the phonetic group [kw], more frequent are the words in which the transcription is CUO (58%), less frequent those with the transcription QUO (37%), and rare those in which the phonetic group [kw] is realized by the string CQU (only 5%) (De Mauro, 2000). The same applies for words containing the syllables [t∫e], [∫e], [dʒe]: the transcriptions SCE, CE and GE are more frequent than SCIE, CIE and GIE.
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language. We examined a sample of Italian normal readers from first to eighth grade with a spelling test including regular words, words requiring the application of context-sensitive rules, ambiguous words, and regular pseudowords. In line with the DRM, we evaluated the effect of regularity (regular words and pseudowords vs. ambiguous words) and that of orthographic complexity (regular words with onesound-to-one letter correspondence vs. context-sensitive words) as markers of the sublexical procedure and the effect of lexicality (words vs. pseudowords) as a marker of the lexical procedure (Coltheart, Rastle, Perry, Ziegler, & Langdon, 2001). We were also interested in examining the effect of psycholinguistic variables, such as word frequency, age of acquisition (AoA) and word length, on the spelling of ambiguous words at different levels of literacy acquisition. Focusing on ambiguous word spelling should prove informative because, as described before, little is known about the establishment and consolidation of lexical processing in shallow orthographies. Moreover, ambiguous words may be considered critical for the assessment of Italian children; in fact, previous studies reported that performances on ambiguous words discriminated very well between normal and impaired Italian spellers (Angelelli et al., 2004; Angelelli, Notarnicola, Judica, Zoccolotti, & Luzzatti, 2010). Therefore, it seemed important establishing the relative contribution of the two spelling procedures on the processing of these stimuli.
Method Participants A group of 465 children from first to eighth grade was examined. The children attended state schools in and around Rome (central Italy) and Bari (southern Italy). Criteria for inclusion in the sample were: Parental permission, Italian as native language, normal reading level as assessed by a standard reading test (Test MT, Cornoldi & Colpo, 1998, see below), normal non-verbal intelligence as measured by the Colored Progressive Matrices (Raven, 1996), and adequate socio-educational conditions. Age ranged from 6 years and 7 months to 14 years and 9 months. Basic information on the sample is presented in Table 1. Reading assessment The reading level was assessed using a standard reading achievement test (MT Reading test, Cornoldi & Colpo, 1998). Two meaningful text passages were given. The participant had to read aloud the first text passage within a 4-min time limit; speed (time in seconds per number of syllables read) and accuracy (number of errors, adjusted for the amount of text read) were computed. The second passage had to be read silently or aloud without a time limit and the participant had to answer 10 multiple-choice questions (comprehension index). Stimulus materials and related reference norms vary depending on school grade. Children with a pathological performance for reading speed and/or accuracy according to standard normative data (Cornoldi & Colpo, 1998) were excluded.
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The case of Italian language Clinical and demographic characteristics of the sample: means and standard deviations
Table 1 Grade N
Gender
Age
Raven
Accuracy
Speed
Comprehension
.8 ± .38
8.07 ± 1.59
MT battery 1
69 F = 30/M = 39
6.77 ± .30
20.46 ± 3.44 4.7 ± 2.76
2
75 F = 39/M = 36
7.65 ± .43
24.76 ± 3.72 6.04 ± 3.86 .49 ± .17 7.55 ± 1.55
3
58 F = 28/M = 30
8.62 ± .39
28.83 ± 3.89 4.49 ± 3.21 .40 ± .17 8.12 ± 1.43
4
98 F = 37/M = 61
9.53 ± .54
26.33 ± 3.69 5.15 ± 2.55 .31 ± .06 7.67 ± 1.64
5
67 F = 37/M = 30
10.62 ± .43 30.51 ± 3.75 5.19 ± 3.14 .28 ± .05 8.19 ± 1.38
6
33 F = 17/M = 16
11.98 ± .42 23.4 ± 1.96
7
34 F = 16/M = 18
12.82 ± .30 27.79 ± 3.78 6.65 ± 3.11 .22 ± .04 7.03 ± 1.17
31 F = 22/M = 9
13.90 ± .37 29.04 ± 3.38 4.72 ± 2.43 .17 ± .02 8.09 ± 1.55
8 Total
465 F = 226/M = 239 Range 6–15
7.98 ± 3.69 .24 ± .06 8.61 ± 1.86
Range
Range
Range
Range
12–36
0–18
.14–2.19
3–10
Spelling assessment The participants’ spelling abilities were tested with a standard Spelling test (Angelelli et al., 2008), composed of four sections: Section A: Regular words (words with complete one-sound-to-one-letter correspondence; N = 70). Words were selected with different sources of phonetic-phonological complexity: (1) words made up of continuant sounds only (fricative, liquid or nasal consonants) versus words also containing non-continuant (plosive) consonants; (2) words made up only of consonant–vowel (CV) syllables versus words also containing consonant clusters and doubled consonants; and (3) bisyllabic versus polysyllabic words. The presence of different sources of phoneticphonological complexity allows considering variables influencing both segmentation and identification of the phonemic string to be converted (for instance, continuous phones are by their nature easiest to segment, and hence to identify, than non-continuant phones). Section B: Context-sensitive words (words requiring the application of contextsensitive sound-to-spelling rules; N = 10). In Italian, the orthographic realization of sequences involving [k], [g], [t∫], [dʒ] is determined by context sensitive rules and depends on the letters that follow (e.g., [k] in [kaza], (home) is spelt CASA, but in [kiesa], (church) is spelt CHIESA) (N = 10). Section C: Ambiguous words (words with two or more possible transcriptions along the phonological-to-orthographic conversion routine; N = 55). This section included: (1) words containing the phonemic group [kw], which in Italian may be transcribed by the orthographic sequences QU, CU, or CQU; (2) words containing the syllables [t∫e], [∫e], and [dʒe], which may or may not require an I (e.g., [∫entsa], science, is spelt SCIENZA and not *SCENZA, while [∫ena], scene, is spelt SCENA and not *SCIENA); (3) words containing plosive phones followed by the liquid consonants [r] which are homophones to their doubled pairs (e.g., FEBBRE, fever and not *FEBRE, but LIBRO, book, and not *LIBBRO); (4) words containing the segments [lj] − [ʎ] and [nj] − [ɲ], that are homophonous in most
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Italian variants to the extent that [biljardo/biʎardo], billiards, is spelt BILIARDO and not *BIGLIARDO, while [folja/foʎa], leaf, is spelt FOGLIA and not *FOLIA; similarly [opinjone/opiɲone], opinion, is spelt OPINIONE and not *OPIGNONE, while [oɲuno/onjuno], everybody, is spelt OGNUNO and not *ONIUNO. Section D: Regular pseudowords (not lexical units with one-sound-to-one-letter correspondence; N = 25). Items were controlled for different sources of phoneticphonological complexity, as were the words in Section A: (1) continuance of sounds (pseudowords with continuant vs. non-continuant consonants); syllabic structure (pseudowords with consonant–vowel (CV) syllables vs. pseudowords containing doubled consonants); and length (bysillabic vs. 3–4 syllable pseudowords). Similar to section A, the phonetic/phonological variables are introduced for taking into account variables influencing the acoustic-to-phonological analysis that is preliminary to an effective phonological-to-orthographic conversion procedure (Table 2). Words and pseudowords were given in separate runs and in a single quasirandomized order. The examiner read each item aloud in a neutral tone, i.e., without emphasizing the presence of clusters, double consonants, or possible orthographic ambiguities. The children were asked to repeat each item before writing it down (so that the examiner could ensure that they had perceived the item). When the child failed to repeat or upon his/her request, the examiner read the stimulus again. This occurred in a very limited number of cases (about 1%), and the second repetition proved always adequate to obtain a correct repetition of the item. Children were permitted to write in either capital or lower case letters. No feedback was provided on the accuracy of the written response. Final responses were considered, irrespective of the correctness of the first attempt. In fact, we were interested to analyze what the child considered his/her best (final) response. At any rate, selfcorrections were quite rare. Children were tested individually.
Analysis of data Quantitative analysis First, the number of items correctly written by all participants in the four sections of the test was computed. A Mixed Model ANOVA was performed with grade as between-subjects factor (8 levels: grade 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8), and type of stimuli as within-subjects factor (4 levels: regular words, context sensitive words, ambiguous words, and regular pseudowords). The post-hoc Newman–Keuls test was used to decompose interactions. A trend analysis was performed in order to identify the function/s that best describe the development of subjects’ performances at the different sections of the Spelling test (regular words, context-sensitive words, ambiguous words, regular pseudowords). In order to assess which variables influence ambiguous word spelling, a series of stepwise multiple regressions were performed, separately for each grade. In
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The case of Italian language Table 2
Subtests of the writing task (Angelelli et al., 2008)
Examples (translation)
Continuance
Cluster
Doubled consonants
Syllables
N
(A) Regular words with one-sound-to-one-letter correspondence (n = 70) 1
sole (sun)
Yes
No
No
2
10
2
lavoro/semaforo (work/traffic light)
Yes
No
No
3/4
10
3
senso (sense)
Yes
Yes
No
2
10
4
valle (valley)
Yes
No
Yes
2
10
5
dito (finger)
No
No
No
2
10
6
prato (meadow)
No
Yes
No
2
10
7
tappo (cork)
No
No
Yes
2
10
Examples
Rule
N
[k], [g], [t∫], [dʒ]
10
(B) Context-sensitive words (n = 10) 8
gola/ghiro/valigia (throat/dormouse/suitcase) Examples (translation)
Ambiguity
N
10
(C) Words with ambiguous transcription (n = 55) 9
scena/scienza (scene/science)
[t∫e], [∫e], [dʒe] ± i
10
paglia/balia (straw/nurse)
[ʎ]: GL/LI
10
11
segno/genio (sign/genius)
[ɲ]: GN/NI
10
12
libro/febbre (book/fever)
BR/BBR
10
13
cuore/quota/aquila (heart/rate/eagle)
[kw]: CU/QU
15
Examples
Continuance
Cluster
Doubled consonant
Syllables
N
(D) Pseudowords with one-sound-to-one-letter correspondence (n = 25) 1
Nise
Yes
No
No
2
5
2
vima`ne/rama`sola
Yes
No
No
3/4
5
3
seffa
Yes
No
No
2
5
4
tido
No
No
Yes
2
5
5
nitta
No
No
No
2
5
particular, we examined the relative contributions of AoA, word frequency, and word length in predicting the accuracy of ambiguous words spelling. AoA values were computed adopting the same procedure used by Barca, Burani, and Arduino (2002). Forty adults (range of age: 22–33 years; females = 20, males = 20) were requested to estimate the AoA of the 55 ambiguous words on a five-point scale. Word frequency was computed from a word frequency dictionary for children (based on a corpus of 500,000 stimuli; Marconi, Ott, Pesenti, Ratti, & Tavella, 1993) and also from a word frequency dictionary for adults (Bortolini, Tagliavini, & Zampolli, 1972). Frequency values were log-transformed. Word length was calculated as number of letters (range: 4–10 letters). Values of AoA, frequency, and length are reported in the “Appendix” for each ambiguous word.
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A. Notarnicola et al.
Finally, we applied to spelling data the equation: PðregÞ ¼ PðirregÞ þ ð1 PðirregÞÞ PðnwdÞ originally developed by Coltheart (2000) and Coltheart et al. (2001) for predicting reading ability. In this way, we aimed to predict the spelling performance on regular words from the performance on irregular (ambiguous) words (an estimate of the competence of the lexical route) or that on pseudowords (an estimate of the competence of the sublexical route). The rationale is as follows: Ambiguous words are spelt primarily by using the lexical procedure and pseudowords by using the sublexical procedure. On the other hand, regular words can be spelt in either way. If regular words are spelt sublexically, then the correlation between obtained accuracy on pseudowords and obtained accuracy on regular words (robtRW.obtPW) should be high. Similarly, if regular words are spelt via a lexical strategy, then the correlation between obtained accuracy on regular words and ambiguous words (robtRW.obtAW) should be high. If both of these procedures are involved in the spelling of regular words, the correlation between predicted and obtained accuracy on regular word spelling (robtRW.predRW) should be higher than the two previous correlations (i.e., robtRW. obtAW and robtRW.obtPW). To test the significance of the differences between correlation coefficients the Fisher r-to-z transformation was used. We applied this equation to data from the general sample. Furthermore, we performed separate correlations only for the first four grades since the trend analysis (see below) showed a plateau of performance around third-fourth grade. Error analysis The nature of the spelling errors was analyzed irrespective of the section of the test to which the target item belonged. Errors were coded as: (I)
Phonologically plausible errors (impaired spellings along the lexical route): Spellings that can be pronounced to sound like the target words. These errors arise from the over-application of the phoneme-to-grapheme conversion routine and include: (a) Errors in the absence of an orthographic rule: Spellings are phonologically plausible, but lexically incorrect [e.g., *CUOTA instead of QUOTA (=rate)]; (b) Errors violating an orthographic rule: These errors consisted in the insertion of the silent H in the orthographic realization of sequences involving [k] and [g] [e.g., *DIGHA instead of DIGA (dam), *CHASA instead of CASA (house), see section B in the Spelling assessment paragraph]; (c) Phonologically plausible doubling of a single consonant: These errors mainly consisted in the doubling of the sequences involving [dʒ] [e.g., *ADAGGIO instead of ADAGIO (adagio), *VALIGGIA instead of VALIGIA (suitcase)]; they are considered among the phonologically
123
The case of Italian language
plausible errors because they are related to the pronunciation of the specific linguistic area of the study. (II) Errors based on minimal distance features: Substitutions of consonants or vowels that differ only in a single distinctive feature [e.g., sonority, FINO (until) instead of VINO (wine), coronality *CLINA instead of CLIMA (climate), continuance PESTA (pounds) instead of FESTA (party)]. (III) Doubling of a single consonant or de-doubling of a doubled consonant [e.g., *BUCCO instead of BUCO (hole); *TAPO instead of TAPPO (cap)]. These spellings are not phonologically plausible in Italian. (IV) Context-sensitive errors: Failures to apply the rules regulating the orthographic transcription of a consonant when it is determined by the following vowel [e.g., *ADAGO instead of ADAGIO (adage) or GIRO instead of GHIRO (dormouse)]; (V) Non-minimal-distance substitutions [e.g., *BALO instead of BACO (worm)], omissions [e.g.,*VSONE instead of VISONE (mink)], insertions [e.g., *MANRMO instead of MARMO (marble)], and letter transpositions [e.g., *PATRO instead of PRATO (meadow)]. For the sake of brevity, this category is referred to as other errors. We considered phonologically plausible errors (errors Ia–Ib–Ic) as signs of failure of the lexical procedure and of reliance on sublexical procedure and all the other categories of errors (errors II–V) as signs of failure of the sublexical procedure. To investigate the higher-order factor structure underpinning variations between the different types of errors, a principal component analysis (Varimax rotation) was performed on the raw scores for the different error categories. On the factor scores extracted from this analysis, a trend analysis was performed, similar to that used for the quantitative analysis.
Results Quantitative analysis Mean percentages of correct responses as a function of type of stimuli and grade are shown in Fig. 1. The ANOVA showed a significant main effect of grade, F(7, 457) = 38.91, p \ .001, and of type of stimulus, F(3, 1,371) = 302.64, p \ .001. A significant interaction between these factors was present, F(21, 1,371) = 7.07, p \ .001. This interaction was decomposed to examine the presence and timing of the regularity, lexicality and orthographic complexity effects. At all grades, children were more accurate on regular items (words and pseudowords) than on ambiguous words (regularity effect; all p \ .01 from first to eighth grade, Newman–Keuls test); however, this difference progressively decreased from first (Δ = 20%) to eighth grade (Δ = 6%). A ceiling effect was apparent for regular words around fourth grade while the spelling of ambiguous words improved throughout the period
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A. Notarnicola et al.
Fig. 1
Mean percentage of accuracy on the four sections of the writing task as a function of grade
examined. Children were more accurate on regular words than on pseudowords (lexicality effect) from first to fourth grade (for all comparisons, p \ .001). The performance on context-sensitive words was poorer than that on regular words (from first to fourth grade; p \ .01) and pseudowords (from first to third grade, p \ .01; orthographic complexity effect). Overall, children had a high rate of accuracy on regular words already by first grade (89%), on regular pseudowords by second grade (88%), and on context-sensitive words by third grade (around 90%). By contrast, ambiguous words reached similar levels of performance only in sixthseventh grade (87–90%). The trend analysis showed similar results for regular stimuli (words and pseudowords): A stronger linear trend accounting for 49% of the variance for words and 52% for pseudowords, F(1, 457) = 77.59, p \ .001 for words and, F(1, 457) = 83.76, p \ .001 for pseudowords, and a quadratic trend accounting for 19% of the variance for both types of stimuli, F(1, 457) = 30.62, p \ .001 for words and, F(1, 457) = 30.76, p \ .001 for pseudowords, indicating a plateau of performance around third-fourth grade. Context-sensitive words also followed a similar trend: A linear trend accounted for 64% of the variance, F(1, 457) = 78.58, p \ .001, and a quadratic trend for 13% of the variance, F(1, 457) = 16.02, p \ .001. In the case of ambiguous words, a strong linear trend accounted for 76% of the variance, F(1, 457) = 248.62, p \ .001, while only a small percentage of the variance (4%) was explained by the quadratic trend, F(1, 457) = 14.29, p \ .001. As for variables influencing the spelling of ambiguous words, the regression analyses indicated that, in first grade, the model accounted for 23% of variance, F(2, 54) = 7.86, p \ .001. Word length entered on step 1 accounting for 15% of the variance, followed by AoA which explained 6% of the additional variance; the
123
The case of Italian language Table 3 Correlations between obtained and predicted regular word accuracy and obtained accuracy on regular words, pseudowords and ambiguous words (see text for details) Correlations between obtained regular word accuracy and Grade
N
Predicted regular word accuracy robtRW.predRW
Obtained pseudoword accuracy robtRW.obtPW
Obtained ambiguous word accuracy robtRW.obtAW
1
69
.92*
.89*
.74*, °
2
75
.90*
.88*
.68*, °
3
58
.77*
.64*
.55*, °
4
98
.81*
.75*
.46*, °
.92*
.87* °
.70*, °
Total sample
465
,
* p \ .01 (significance of the correlation); ° p \ .01 (significance of the difference of the correlation with the corresponding robtRW.predRW)
contribution of word frequency was not significant. In children from second through eighth grade, AoA was the only significant predictor accounting for between 14 and 23% of unique variance depending on the grade considered. In all cases, word frequency and length were not significant. Finally, we applied the equation developed by Coltheart (2000) and Coltheart et al. (2001) to predict the spelling performance on regular words from that on irregular (ambiguous) words and pseudowords. Correlations between obtained and predicted accuracy on regular words (robtRW.predRW) as well as obtained accuracy on regular words and pseudowords (robtRW.obtPW) and obtained accuracy on regular and ambiguous words (robtRW.obtAW) are presented in Table 3. Over the total sample, the correlation between obtained and predicted accuracy on regular words was high (robtRW.predRW = .92), as expected. The correlation between obtained accuracy on regular words and pseudowords was .87 and that between obtained accuracy on regular and ambiguous words was .70. Using the Fisher r-to-z transformation, the robtRW.predRW was significantly greater than the other two correlations (robtRW.obtPW: z = 3.89, p \ .0001; and robtRW.obtAW: z = 10.97, p \ .0001). This pattern was generally confirmed when each grade was separately evaluated (i.e., higher robtRW.predRW than robtRW.obtPW and robtRW.obtAW). However, note that differences between robtRW.predRW, on the one hand, and robtRW. obtAW, on the other hand, were quantitatively larger and significant at all grades tested (at least p \ .01). By contrast, differences between robtRW.predRW and robtRW. obtPW were quantitatively smaller and not significant. This pattern of findings is generally consistent with the view that spelling regular words benefits from the interaction/cooperation of both spelling procedures, a prediction based on the proposal by Coltheart et al. (2001). The smaller differences between robtRW.predRW and robtRW.obtPW (as compared to the same correlation with the obtained accuracy on ambiguous words) is in keeping with a greater role of the sublexical routine in spelling of Italian children.
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A. Notarnicola et al.
Error analysis Error means are reported in Fig. 2 as a function of grade and error type. Inspection of the figure shows that phonologically plausible errors were prevalent at all grades. All other types of errors decreased with schooling, being present only in first to third grade. The principal component analysis on the 10 error categories extracted a structure with two factors (eigenvalues [ 1.00), accounting for 40.66 and 17.93% of the variance, respectively. The model explained 58.6% of cumulate variance. Factor loadings in excess of 0.5 on the rotated factor matrix are displayed in Table 4. The seven variables loading highly on factor 1 indicated all not phonologically plausible errors representing inaccurate spellings via the sublexical procedure. Thus, we refer to this factor as sublexical failure. The highest loadings on factor 2 were the three types of phonologically plausible errors (errors Ia–Ic). Factor 2 appears to mark spellings along the lexical route. Thus, we call this factor lexical failure. Similarly to what we did for the quantitative analysis, a trend analysis was performed on factor scores. Factor scores of the sublexical failure factor were explained by a linear, F(1, 457) = 21.15, p \ .001, 48% of variance, and a quadratic trend, F(1, 457) = 29.04, p \ .001, with 20% of explained variance, indicating a plateau around third-fourth grade. The factor scores of the lexical failure factor were explained only by a linear trend, F(1, 457) = 11.59, p \ .001, with 73% of explained variance.
Fig. 2
Error means according to the various typologies of errors as function of grade
123
The case of Italian language Table 4
Factor loading in excess of .5 on the rotated factor matrix
Variable
Factor 1
Factor 2
PP errors in absence of an orthographic rule
.44
PP errors violating an orthographic rule
.06
.59 .75
PP errors consisting in doubling a single consonant
−.01
.69
Non PP doubling/de-doubling errors
.61
.44
Minimal distance substitutions
.61
.31
Non-minimal distance substitutions
.86
−.04
Omissions
.85
.05
Insertions
.78
.07
Letter transpositions
.77
.09
Context-sensitive errors
.68
.31
PP Phonologically plausible
Discussion Both quantitative and error analyses indicated that Italian children used the lexical and sublexical spelling processes from the first year of school. As for sublexical spelling, at all grades children were more accurate on regular stimuli (whether words or pseudowords) than ambiguous words (regularity effect). It is worth noting that pseudowords were spelt more accurately than ambiguous words at all grades. Therefore, the regularity effect was stronger than the lexicality one. Moreover, regular words were spelt more accurately than context-sensitive words (orthographic complexity effect). Both effects point to reliance on the sublexical spelling procedure. Conversely, the results also indicated an early use of the lexical spelling process. Namely, regular words were spelt more accurately than regular pseudowords from first to eighth grade. The presence of a lexicality effect already in first grade confirms previous observations by Cossu et al. (1995). Note that performance on regular words benefited from the successful cooperation between the lexical and sublexical processing; therefore, the word advantage over pseudowords should not be viewed as an exclusive recourse to the lexicon (further comments on the cooperation between the two routes are presented below). In line with results on accuracy scores, also the error analyses supported the presence of the two spelling procedures from the early stage of spelling. The factor analysis on error types indicated a structure with two factors, one accounting for all errors indicating failure of the sublexical route and the other for all phonologically plausible errors (indicating a failure of the lexical route). Notably, the two processes showed different developmental trends. Accuracy on pseudoword spelling showed a rapid increase followed a plateau around third-fourth grade, while accuracy on ambiguous words increased throughout the period tested. These data indicate an earlier and more rapid development for the sublexical procedure and a more gradual acquisition in the case of the lexical procedure. The analyses on the error types generally confirmed these differential trends.
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A. Notarnicola et al.
Overall, both quantitative and error analyses showed that, in Italian, the two conversion processes of the sublexical route (acoustic-to-phonological and phoneme-to-grapheme) are optimized early, i.e., within the first 3 years of schooling. Conversely, even though signs of the recourse to orthographic representations are detected early, optimization in the use of the lexical route is reached quite slowly. This is consistent with the idea that orthographic proficiency depends upon how many lexical representations are stored and how well specified they are to support accurate spelling (Romani, Di Betta, Tsouknida, & Olson, 2008). The present results are based on a cross-sectional study. A confirmation of these developmental trends based on a longitudinal study would be important. The present data seem generally consistent with previous studies on relatively regular languages such as Czech, Turkish, German, and Spanish (see Caravolas, 2004 for a review). In these studies, a ceiling effect is reported for pseudoword spelling by the first or second grade of primary school. They also appear consistent with studies on other European orthographies, more transparent than English but more opaque than Italian, such as French (Fernandes et al., 2008; SprengerCharolles et al., 2003), the present data showed an early development of sublexical spelling and reliance on sublexical processing even when indicators of lexical processing appeared. In particular, Sprenger-Charolles et al. (2003) reported that French children spelt regular items (words and pseudowords) more accurately than irregular items across all grades tested (1–4) and, similarly to our data, found a ceiling effect for pseudowords by third grade (92% of accuracy). Similarly, our results showed that, in Italian, the regularity effect is larger than the lexicality effect, with better processing of pseudowords than ambiguous words. This finding indicates the prevalent reliance on the sublexical procedure (with respect to the lexical one) also in Italian, in agreement with the hypothesis that reliance on the different procedures depends on the degree of regularity of a language. With regard to the development of lexical spelling, our results are inconsistent with the view which denies the presence of the lexical route in relatively regular languages (Ardila, 1991; Ardila et al., 1989; Frost et al., 1987). By contrast, they are in line with previous studies of reading (e.g., Marcolini et al., 2008; Zoccolotti et al., 2009) and spelling (Cossu et al., 1995) in Italian showing an early use of lexical process also in relatively regular orthography. For example, in a recent study on the development of reading in Italian, Zoccolotti et al. (2009) found that, at the end of first grade, children read words faster and more accurately than pseudowords (lexicality effect) indicating activation of the lexicon at early stages of literacy acquisition, a finding that the present results extend to the spelling domain. It is also of note that, for first graders, we found that length had a high predictive value on ambiguous words spelling. This latter result is coherent with what reported for reading in Italian (Zoccolotti et al., 2009): Length was a powerful factor in modulating reading performance at early stages of learning and became progressively less critical later on in the case of words (particularly high frequency words). The authors interpreted the length effect as evidence of a prevalent reliance on sublexical processes in young readers. Similarly, the length effect on ambiguous word spelling may indicate the possible role of the sublexical procedure in spelling this kind of stimuli in beginners. However, the significant
123
The case of Italian language
effect of length in spelling ambiguous words may also be interpreted as evidence of the operation of the graphemic buffer. It is known that longer stimuli place grater demands on a limited buffer and is possible that the length effect is the result of the smaller working memory spans of younger children. Since no measure of working memory was included in the present study, these two alternative interpretations cannot be teased apart on the basis of the present data. Unlike the sublexical route, results on the development of the lexical route partly deviated from those on French and Portuguese. In fact, the present results also showed early signs of reliance on the lexical procedure since the first grade of schooling, with a lexicality effect (regular words spelt better than pseudowords) and early positive influence of a lexical variable, such as AoA, on ambiguous words spelling. By contrast, in French (Sprenger-Charolles et al., 2003), the lexicality effect never favored spelling of words (whether regular or irregular) with respect to pseudowords. In Portuguese (Fernandes et al., 2008), the lexicality effect appeared later in development. In line with other studies on opaque languages (for a review see Caravolas, Hulme, & Snowling, 2001) the authors of these two studies argued that skilled lexical spelling requires a foundation in sublexical transcoding ability that, in turn, enables the formation of orthographic representations. Conversely, in Italian both procedures seem to act in parallel and are available since an early phase of literacy acquisition. This latter result may be ascribed to different factors, such as the different ages of participants (we tested our participants at the end of each level of schooling while, in the French and Portuguese studies, testing occurred earlier), or educational methods (in Italy many teachers start with a global approach instead of the phonic method). Further investigations are needed to clarify this issue. Overall, our results show parallel and early acquisition of both procedures. This pattern is not consistent with stage models, such as those of Frith (1985) or Morton (1989). As for the interrelationship between the two routes, our data support the view of an interaction between the lexical and the sublexical processes also in children, with a possible prevailing role of the latter. The direction of this interaction may depend upon the type of stimuli to be processed. The difficulty in spelling ambiguous words may arise as a consequence of the fact that lexical and sublexical processes produce conflicting responses in the case of words whose correct orthographic solution contain an uncommon sound-to-spelling mapping (i.e., SCIENZA). Thus, also when orthographic representations in the orthographic lexicon of the lexical procedure are acquired, prevalent reliance on the sublexical routine may produce a conflicting output, increasing the probability of making an error. By contrast, the higher accuracy on regular words (with respect to ambiguous words and pseudowords) may depend on the successful cooperation between the lexical and sublexical procedures in producing the correct output. Finally, the early efficiency of sublexical graphemeto-phoneme procedure may contrast the effect of a strong lexical competitor, generating a high rate of phonological plausible errors at all levels of schooling. The differential developmental trend for ambiguous words and pseudowords (as well as the evidence of their interaction in regular word spelling) clearly support the dual-route architecture, in which the two spelling processes are well distinguished (e. g., Kreiner, 1992; Perry, Ziegler, & Coltheart, 2002) although they mutually influence
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A. Notarnicola et al.
each other (e.g., Rapp et al., 2002). By contrast, they appear less consistent with the PDP model; in this case, knowledge of word spellings is represented in a network of interconnected phonological, orthographic, and semantic units and no distinction between lexical and sublexical processes is made (Graham, Patterson, & Hodges, 1997, 2000). Similarly, the present pattern of findings does not support models that postulate a single procedure for spelling irregular words and pseudowords (e.g., Brown & Loosemore, 1994; Bullinaria, 1994; Olson & Caramazza, 1994). Finally, the effect of AoA on ambiguous words spelling merits special consideration. Several developmental studies investigated the role of word frequency while fewer have been concerned with the influence of AoA. Data on Italian showed that AoA does not influence reading in adults (Barca et al., 2002; Bates, Burani, D’Amico, & Barca, 2001) while modulates childrens’ reading (Mazzotta, Barca, Marcolini, Stella, & Burani, 2005) and spelling (Rinaldi & Burani, 2005). Mazzotta et al. (2005) showed that Italian children attending primary school were faster in reading words acquired earlier in the spoken language. Similarly, Rinaldi and Burani (2005) reported a relationship between word acquisition in spoken language and items used in a spontaneous spelling task: Words acquired earlier in the spoken language were those used in spontaneous written texts since first grade. In conclusion, the analysis of the spelling performance of Italian children documented an early use of both lexical and sublexical spelling procedures (that showed differential developmental trends). The DRM appears as a useful theoretical framework to describe spelling in a developmental context and in a relatively regular language such as Italian and seems preferable to the PDP model or to models with single procedure to explain the pattern of data. Acknowledgments The analysis of the interaction between lexical and sublexical processes was carried out during a period of stay of A.N. in the laboratory of Dr. Johannes C. Ziegler. We thank Dr. Ziegler for his helpful advices on this matter.
Appendix See Table 5. Table 5
De-randomized list of words with ambiguous transcription
Items
AoA WF WF Length (children) (adults) (no. of letters)
Items
AoA WF WF EA (children) (adults)
Scienza
3.80
Zebra
2.80
12
0
87
31
7
Length (no. of letters)
2.80 5
Coscienza
5.03
9
34
9
Litro
3.45
35
12
3.45 5
Igiene
4.33
0
5
6
Cetra
5.70
0
0
5.70 5
Societa`
5.07
71
110
7
Febbre
2.37
40
16
2.37 6
Usciere
5.23
0
0
7
Labbro
3.00
91
34
3.00 6
Ascella
3.70
0
0
7
Quattro
2.20
434
193
2.20 7
Gente
2.87 524
202
5
Fabbro
4.13
16
0
4.13 6
123
The case of Italian language Table 5 continued Items
AoA WF WF Length (children) (adults) (no. of letters)
Items
AoA WF WF EA (children) (adults)
Length (no. of letters)
Scena
3.97
51
45
5
Spettro
4.53
24
0
4.53 7
Macello
4.47
0
0
7
Febbre
2.37
40
16
2.37 6
Conoscenza 4.50
3.00 6
56
20
10
Labbro
3.00
91
34
Aglio
3.47
8
0
5
Quattro
2.20
434
193
2.20 7
Caviglia
3.60
9
0
8
Fabbro
4.13
16
0
4.13 6
Migliaia
4.00
0
42
8
Spettro
4.53
24
0
4.53 7
Paglia
3.23
30
8
6
Cuoco
3.30
34
9
3.30 5
Olio
2.87
44
74
4
Scuola
2.37 1,823
102
2.37 6
Balia
4.33
8
8
5
Cuore
2.40
310
136
2.40 5
Vigilia
3.63
16
10
7
Cuoio
4.07
15
12
4.07 5
Milione
4.17 167
145
7
Scuotere 4.70
36
19
4.70 8
Italia
2.60 343
256
6
Squalo
3.20
28
0
3.20 6
Vaniglia
3.93
0
0
8
Aquila
3.10
44
9
3.10 6
Ognuno
4.07 113
35
6
Quarto
3.97
142
51
3.97 6
Segno
3.47 130
215
5
Quarzo
5.40
0
0
5.40 6
Compagno
2.90 748
59
8
Squama 4.57
0
0
4.57 6
Pugnale
3.43
7
9
7
Quota
4.63
12
0
4.63 5
Ragno
2.60
32
0
5
Liquore
4.00
7
11
4.00 7
Niente
2.37
32
588
6
Equo
5.17
0
0
5.17 4
Genio
3.97
19
13
5
Iniquo
5.97
0
0
5.97 6
Obliquo 4.43
10
0
4.43 7
Geranio
4.17
0
7
7
Paniere
4.30
10
0
7
Cerniera
3.50
0
0
8
Libro
2.33 296
86
5
Fibra
4.77
9
5
10
WF (children) Word frequency based on a frequency dictionary for children (Marconi et al., 1993; from a corpus of 500,000 written words); WF (adults) word frequency from Bortolini et al. (1972; from a corpus of 500,000 written words); AoA age of acquisition
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