This article integrates the findings in the special issue with a comprehensive review of the evidence for seven central questions about the role of naming-speed deficits in developmental reading disabilities. Cross-sectional, longitudinal, and cross-linguistic research on naming-speed processes, timing processes, and reading is presented. An evolving model of visual naming illustrates areas of difference and areas of overlap between naming speed and phonology in their underlying requirements. Work in the cognitive neurosciences is used to explore two nonexclusive hypotheses about the putative links between naming speed and reading processes and about the sources of disruption that may cause subtypes of reading disabilities predicted by the double-deficit hypothesis. Finally, the implications of the work in this special issue for diagnosis and intervention are elaborated.

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Adolescent development and pattern of recovery are described for a 15-year-old boy who sustained extensive right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex damage at age 7 from rupture and surgical treatment of a deep arteriovenous malformation. Follow-up evaluations at 4 years and most recently 8 years after illness have shown clear improvement in social-behavioral and almost all cognitive areas initially assessed. He demonstrated resolution of left hemispatial neglect and other visuospatial impairments in working memory, design fluency, and planning and organization. However, at the 8-year follow-up interval, an acquired form of attention deficit disorder remains evident. We hypothesized that this is the likely cause of comparatively lower scores in general intelligence, verbal learning and memory, discourse, and processing speed, that at the 4-year follow-up interval. New measures of emotional face and voice recognition showed only minor difficulties, principally in identifying vocal disgust and fear. Social and psychological maturation has continued to improve, with no evidence of developmental arrest or pervasive social impairment, although the individual is confused at times by complexities and nuances of social interaction. The pattern of findings 8 years after early right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex damage suggests remarkable recovery of primary visuospatial and social impairments, but lingering and somewhat worsening performance deficits which may be due to attentional difficulties and impulsive responding. Treatment of the attentional difficulties is currently being investigated.