Alphanumeric and non-alphanumeric Rapid Automatized Naming in children with reading and/or spelling difficulties and mathematical difficulties

• Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN), tapping many skills, is related to literacy and math.
• Alphanumeric RAN and non-alphanumeric RAN represent two distinguishable factors.
• Children with literacy difficulties (RSD) are impaired on both RAN factors.
• Children with math difficulties (MD) are impaired only on non-alphanumeric RAN.
• Comorbidity between RSD and MD is due to a shared deficit in non-alphanumeric RAN.

Although poor Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) is a risk factor for reading and/or spelling difficulties (RSD) as well as for mathematical difficulties (MD), many questions surround this relationship. The main objective of the present study was to obtain insight in the relationship between alphanumeric vs. non-alphanumeric RAN and reading/spelling and mathematics in groups of 7-to-10-year-old children with RSD, MD, both RSD + MD, and in typically developing (TD) children. Analyses of variance between the groups showed that the RSD and comorbid (RSD + MD) groups were impaired on both alphanumeric and non-alphanumeric RAN, whereas the MD group was impaired only on non-alphanumeric RAN. Furthermore, non-alphanumeric RAN correlated with all measures except spelling, whereas alphanumeric RAN correlated with the reading and spelling measures only. These findings point towards different/additional cognitive processes needed in non-alphanumeric RAN compared to alphanumeric RAN, which affects the relationship with literacy and math.

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