Poor Stroop performances in 15-year-old dyslexic teenagers

Abstract

The Stroop test enables interference between color naming and reading to be studied. Protopapas et al. (2007) reported more errors in an interference task and longer reaction times in 12.5-year-old dyslexics; also more Stroop interference with lower reading skills. The present study uses a version of the Stroop with four color cards and aims to test interference and flexibility in older dyslexic teenagers. The four cards are: color naming, reading, interference and flexibility. In the latter, subjects have to name the color of the word inhibiting reading except when the word is inside a box. This flexibility task enables the testing of the capacity for cognitive switching between tasks. Ten dyslexics (15.1 +/- 0.7 years old) and fourteen controls (14.3 +/- 1.6 years old) participated in the study. All performed the color naming, the reading, the interference and the flexibility tasks in the same order. Subsequently, they performed a sequence of 60 saccades left-right followed by the interference task. Generally, dyslexic teenagers behaved similarly to non-dyslexics as they showed fewer errors in reading and color than in the interference and flexibility tasks. However, they made more errors and needed more time to accomplish each task than non-dyslexics. The results suggest that the inhibitory and attention processes required by the Stroop test are dysfunctioning even in older dyslexics. In contrast, the study shows no evidence for particular difficulty in the flexibility task, which would constitute an argument against problems with mental switching. Following the execution of saccades, errors in the interference test were significantly reduced for dyslexics, while the time was reduced for both groups. The effects are attributed to visual attention training via saccades.

Executive functions in adults with developmental dyslexia

“…Whilst the mean RT to the non-habituated stimulus did not differ between the two groups, the group with dyslexia was significantly less accurate than the control group in inhibiting the pre-potent response and responding correctly to the appearance of the non-habituated stimulus. These results reveal dyslexia-related problems with inhibition and to add to the range of tasks on which such impairments have previously been reported (e.g., Brosnan et al, 2002;Everatt et al, 1997;Kapoula et al, 2010;Reiter et al, 2005).…”

“…The magnitude of the deficit in switching is similar to that reported in children with dyslexia by Poljac et al (2010) and contrasts with the absence of group-related deficits on other tasks designed to assess set shifting (e.g., Kapoula et al, 2010;Närhi et al, 1997;Smith-Spark, 2000;Stoet et al, 2007). The data from Study 2 suggest that, depending on the task and the design used, adults with dyslexia can exhibit greater switch costs when compared to control participants matched for IQ.…”

“…Executive functions in adult dyslexia 18 no dyslexia-related differences in task switching or set shifting (e.g., Kapoula et al, 2010;Närhi, Räsänen, Metsäpelto & Ahonen, 1997;Smith-Spark, 2000).…”

Funções Executivas na Dislexia do Desenvolvimento: Revendo Evidências de Pesquisas

“…Um estudo apresentou os resultados obtidos ao longo de 12 anos de avaliação e intervenção de um Centro Multidisciplinar de Dificuldade de Aprendizagem na Universidade de Washington (BERNINGER et al, 2008) A maioria dos estudos envolveu crianças com idade média entre 9 e 11 anos. Um estudo investigou crianças com idade pré-escolar (THOMPSON et al, 2015), cinco investigações envolveram adolescentes (BROSNAN et al, 2002;KAPOULA et al, 2010;HOROWITZ-KRAUS;BREZNITZ, 2014;HOROWITZ-KRAUS, 2014; HOROWITZ-KRAUS; TORO-SEREY; DIFRANCESCO, 2015), e um trabalho foi realizado também com adultos (BROSNAN et al, 2002). Com relação a metodologia, 94% dos trabalhos utilizou grupo controle de leitores típicos para comparar o desempenho dos estudantes com dislexia, sendo a maioria deles pareados por idade.…”

“…A partir destes achados, conclui-se que a MT tem um grande impacto sobre a leitura tanto de leitores típicos e disléxicos, podendo ser apontada como uma das áreas deficitárias a ser considerada na intervenção para a leitura, o qual justificaria uma intervenção envolvendo a estimulação deste componente. Brosnan et al (2002), Kapoula et al (2010), Lima, Azoni e Ciasca (2011 e Wang e Gathercole (2015) utilizando o teste Stroop, identificaram maior número de erros das crianças com dislexia, assim como a execução das tarefas sendo realizada em tempo maior em comparação ao grupo controle. Isso mostra a incapacidade dos disléxicos de inibirem o processamento da informação que precisa ser ignorada, ou seja, problemas com interferências (BROSNAN et al, 2002 No estudo longitudinal realizado para verificar as contribuições das FE para a alfabetização, Altemeier, Abbott e Berninger (2008) mostram que inibição e alternância automática rápida (RAS), ambos avaliados com o efeito Stroop, contribuem para a leitura e escrita em leitores típicos, e as mesma são necessárias para suprimir distratores, assim como estão ligadas à conexão entre letra e som.…”