Studies on the factors that determine word naming speed have been conducted in a number of languages. In this study two objectives were pursued: (1) to contrast the effects of the variable of age of acquisition with the different measures of frequency of use (adult written frequency, child written frequency, cumulative frequency, and frequency trajectory), and (2) to verify which variables determine reading latencies in a language with a completely transparent reading system (Spanish). For these purposes, 53 native speakers of Spanish read aloud 240 words for which values were available of the main lexical, phonological, and semantic variables. The results of the regression analyses showed that the best predictors of reading times were length (measured in terms of both number of letters and number of syllables) and subjective age of acquisition (AoA). The different frequency measures correlated significantly with the response latencies but were not longer significant in the regression analyses. Semantic variables (familiarity and imageability) had the smallest effects on reading speed. The comparison of the results obtained in this study with those reported for other languages offers some conclusions about the effects of orthographic systems on word naming.

Despite the many studies examining linguistic deterioration in Alzheimer's disease (AD), very little is known about changes in verbal expression during the preclinical phase of this disease. The objective of this study was to determine whether changes in verbal expression occur in the preclinical phase of AD. The sample consisted of 40 healthy Spanish speakers from Antioquia, Colombia. A total of 19 were carriers of the E280A mutation in the Presenilin 1 gene, and 21 were noncarrier family members. The two groups were similar in age and education. All the participants were shown the Cookie Theft Picture Card from the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination and were asked to describe the scene. Specific grammatical and semantic variables were evaluated. The performance of each group was compared using multivariate analyses of the variance for semantic and grammatical variables, and errors. Carriers of the mutation produced fewer semantic categories than noncarriers. In the preclinical phase of AD, changes in verbal expression are apparent and early detection of these differences may assist the early diagnosis of and intervention in this disease. (JINS, 2007, 13, 433–439.)

The relationship between written words and their pronunciation varies considerably among different orthographic systems, and these variations have repercussions on learning to read. Children whose languages have deep orthographies must learn to pronounce larger units, such as rhymes, morphemes, or whole words, to achieve the correct pronunciation of some words. However, children whose languages have transparent orthographies need only learn to pronounce graphemes to be able to read any word. In this study, the reading evolution of Spanish-speaking children was investigated for the purpose of discovering when and for what types of stimuli lexical information is used in Spanish. Five- to 10-year-old children were presented with lists of stimuli in which lexicality, frequency, and length were manipulated. The results in terms of reading accuracy and speed showed that the influence of stimulus length is great in the early grades and later diminishes, and just the opposite is the case for lexicality and frequency. These data suggest that reading acquisition in Spanish constitutes a continuum that ranges from phonological recoding to the use of lexical strategies, and that this transition is made at a very early stage, at least for the most frequent words.