Rapid Naming, Orthographic Processing Abilities and Phonological
Skill in Reading Performance of Indonesian Dyslexic Children
Yanti Br Sitepu, Harwintha Yuhria Anjarningsih and Myrna Laksman-Huntley
Linguistics Department, Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Indonesia, Depok, Indonesia
Keywords: naming speed, orthography, phonological skill, reading, dyslexia.
Abstract: Ho, Chan, Le, Tsang, Luan (2003) found that orthographic and rapid naming deficit might pose an interrelated
and the most dominant deficits in Chinese developmental dyslexia, but the phonological skill only had small
deficit proportion. Burt (2006) also revealed that the reading experience associated with orthographic
processing skill did not always closely track the level of phonological coding skill. Therefore, this study
investigated the rapid naming, orthographic choice accuracy and phonological skill of Indonesian dyslexic
children. 5 dyslexics from Pantara Inclusive Primary School, Jakarta (age 7-9; DA, DB, DC, DD, DE) and 25
children from Kwitang 8 Primary School, Depok (chronological age-matched control) participated. This study
used quantitative and qualitative method (case-control study design). Two experimental measures were
adapted from prior research, among them: words reading test by Anjarningsih (2015) and Rapid Automatic
Naming test by Pennington et al. (2001). The t-test results showed that child with dyslexia B, C and E were
significantly slower than control group, child with dyslexia A could not read all words, child with dyslexia E
had severe reading disabilities, child with dyslexia C had difficulties reading words with digraph, diphthong
and consonant cluster, child with dyslexia D had difficulties reading words with consonant cluster. Two
dyslexics also showed some classification of errors like phoneme deletion, phoneme addition, vowel and
consonant substitution, real words to pseudo words alteration, which indicated that Indonesian dyslexic
children have similar deficit in naming speed and orthographic processing skill as found by Ho, Chan, Le,
Tsang, Luan (2003).
1 INTRODUCTION
The definition of dyslexia is still a debate for many
researches. However, many studies reveal that
reading difficulty is the most problem faced by people
with dyslexia (Lyon, Shawitz, Shaywitz, 2003; Reid,
2011; and Mercer (1997, see Ivanti 2003). People
who are diagnosed with dyslexia generally show
disabilities to recognize sounds. They tend to
substitute phoneme like [b] to [d], [b] to [p] or [d] to
[p] and [p] to [b] (Solek and Dewi, 2015). They also
tend to alter word to pseudo word like: lainnya
[lainɲa] ‘others’ to laya [laja]. As for the reading
errors, it is indicated that the reading difficulties are
caused by phonological skill deficit.
Apart from phonological difficulties as the core
deficit in developmental dyslexia, many researchers
found that reading difficulties were caused by the
deficit in rapid naming and orthographic processing
skill (OPS). Rapid Automatic Naming is to measure
the speed to name objects. If children with dyslexia
are slower than normal children in naming objects,
the dyslexic children might have a deficit in naming
speed. As for the Orthographic Processing skill, OPS
is the ability of forming, storing and accessing
orthographic representation relation with reading
(Burt, 2006). Deficit in OPS may result from a
habitual shallow and non-analytic processing style in
readers when encountering words (Barker et al. 1992,
see Burt, 2006).
In connection to the reading ability of children
with dyslexia, Ho et al (2003) found that orthographic
and rapid naming deficits in Chinese dyslexic
children posed an interrelated problem in developing
orthographic knowledge and representation. One
hundred and forty-seven Hong Kong Chinese
developmental dyslexia were tested. The study found
57% of the subjects had rapid naming deficit and
those who had orthographic deficit reached 42 %.
The aforesaid facts show that rapid naming and
orthographic deficit become the unique contributions
to literacy performance, but phonological skills do
844
Sitepu, Y., Anjarningsih, H. and Laksman-Huntley, M.
Rapid Naming, Orthographic Processing Abilities and Phonological Skill in Reading Performance of Indonesian Dyslexic Children.
DOI: 10.5220/0007176308440847
In Proceedings of the Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference
on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education (CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017) - Literacy, Culture, and Technology in Language Pedagogy and Use, pages 844-847
ISBN: 978-989-758-332-2
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved

not. Therefore, orthographic-related difficulties are
the crux of the problem in Chinese dyslexics. In
addition, it differs with the skill of Chinese normal
children (grade 2) found by Liao (2006). The study
suggested that rapid naming correlated stronger with
phonological skill. Only children in grade 4 showed
that orthographic processing skill was more important
as they advanced in grades.
Therefore, in order to characterize the reading
ability of Indonesian dyslexics, this study aims to
investigate the naming speed ability, orthography
processing skill, and phonological skill of Indonesian
dyslexic children. This study also aims to investigate
the reading performance of dyslexics, to see whether
this study result is consistent with the finding of Ho
et al. (2003) and the last, to evaluate the hypothesis of
Orthographic Processing Skill of Indonesian Children
with dyslexia (Burt, 2006). In addition, Ho et al.
(2003) did not measure the IQ score of the control
group when they compared the skill between control
group and dyslexics. Therefore, the present study will
include intelligence test for the control group to
improve its matching with dyslexics.
2 METHODS
The research method were quantitative and
qualitative with a case control study approach. The
dyslexics’ data were taken from two experimental
tests. Firstly, the researcher observed and interviewed
participants, teachers and also psychologist, then the
dyslexics were tested. Afterwards, the data was
analyzed by means of t-test independent analysis.
As for the participants, a total of 30 children age
7, 8, and 9 years participated in this study, amongst
them: 5 developmental dyslexics (3 males, 2 females)
and 25 age-matched children who served as controls.
We refer to dyslexics as DA (IQ=92), DB (IQ=92),
DC (IQ=92), DC (IQ=92), DE (IQ=92), and as for the
control group, CA, CB, CC, CD and CE. The
intelligence test for control group was also conducted.
All participants shared same sociocultural
background, and their native language is Bahasa
Indonesia. The developmental dyslexics were
recruited from Pantara Inclusive Primary School in
Tebet, Jakarta, whereas, The controlled children were
selected from Kwitang 8 Primary School in Pancoran
Mas, Depok, matched by sex and age one by one to
the dyslexic children. Before performing the tests,
informed consent from parents from both dyslexics
and controls were received.
2.1 Word Reading
The ability of reading was assessed using word
reading test derived from Anjarningsih (2015). The
words consisted of 104 words (24 words with simple
words (bagi [bagi] ‘divide’), 24 words with digraph
(i.e. bunga [buŋa] ‘flower’, 24 words with diphthong
(i.e. hijau [hiɟau] ‘green’, and 24 words with
consonant cluster (i.e. planet [planɛt] planet)). The
words were taken from the 10.000 highest frequent
words based on the linguistic corpus of Bahasa
Indonesia.
2.2 Rapid Automatic Naming
Rapid naming was assessed through the
administration of Pennington et al. (2001) [Rapid
Automatized Naming Test for objects, colors,
numbers, and letters (RAN-Objects, RAN-Colors,
RAN-Numbers, and RAN-letters)]. These four tasks
consisted of 5 items arrayed on cards. Each was
repeated in random order 10 times. Participants were
asked to name objects as quickly as possible, amongst
them: number (2), symbol-object (3) and color (4) to
assess their familiarities with the presented stimuli. A
voice recorder was used to record all activities.
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
Figure 1: Alphabet (1), number (2), symbol-object (3),
color (4), mixed of alphabet and number (5), mixed of
alphabet, number, and color (6).
2.3 Procedure
The children were tested individually in a silent room.
Two tasks were administered, including word reading
Rapid Naming, Orthographic Processing Abilities and Phonological Skill in Reading Performance of Indonesian Dyslexic Children
845

test and RAN test. Children were individually asked
to read the word list and RAN test aloud. A recorder
was used to record the spoken answers. The accuracy
of word reading and RAN test were counted. As for
the naming speed, the children’s data were then
transferred to PRAAT program to get the reaction
time during the word reading and RAN test. Time was
measured from the start signal. Afterwards the data of
reading skill and naming-speed were analyzed by
means of t-test independent analysis.
2.4 T-Test Independent Analysis
Based on the result appeal of paired sample in t-test
independent, there were four dyslexic children who
showed significantly lower than the controls in
reading. Amongst them: child with dyslexia A
(digraph: p=0.000; diphthong p=0.000; consonant
cluster: p=0.000), child with dyslexia C (digraph:
p=0.000), child with dyslexia D (consonant cluster:
p=0.001), and child with dyslexia E (simple word:
p=0.000, consonant cluster: p=0.000).
As for the RAN test, there were four children who
showed significantly lower than the control group,
amongst them: child with dyslexia A (letter: p=0.000;
picture=0.000; color p=0.000; letter and number
p=0.000, letter, number, and color p=0.000), child
with dyslexia B (color: p=0.021), child with dyslexia
D (picture: p=0.007; number and letter: p=0.005);
letter, number and color p=0.000).
Figure 2: Word reading percentage ability of dyslexic
children.
Based on the diagram (figure 2 and 3), it is
observed that child with dyslexia C (92.3%), D
(100%) and E (30,8%) is easier to read simple words
than the words with diphthong, child with dyslexia C
is easier to read words with diphthong (46.2%) than
to read consonant cluster, and words with consonant
cluster (3.8%) is easier to be read than the words with
digraph, child with dyslexia D find easier to read
diphthong (96.2%), then digraph (88.5%) and
consonant cluster (3.8%) are the most difficult at all.
Child with dyslexia A cannot read any single words,
and child with dyslexia E can read words with simple
words only.
Figure 3: RAN percentage ability of Indonesian dyslexic
children.
Figure 4: Naming Rapid Ability of Dyslexic Children.
Based on the ability of naming speed of
Indonesian dyslexic children, it is observed that three
out of five dyslexic children have deficit in naming
speed, amongst them: child with dyslexia B (RAN,
p=0.001), child with dyslexia C (reading, p=0.000;
RAN, p=0.002), child with dyslexia E (reading,
p=0.000; RAN, p=0.000). As for the reaction time,
the lowest duration of dyslexic’ skill is 0.675s, and
the highest is 8.6s. As for the controls, the lowest is
0.456s, and the highest is 0.786s. For the RAN, the
lowest of dyslexic’s reaction time is 0.675s, and the
highest is 4.096s. For the controls, the lowest reaction
time is 0.737s, and the highest is 1,38s.
2.5 Qualitative Results
It is observed that 3 out of 5 Indonesian dyslexic
children make some classification of errors. Child
0
88.5
92.3
100
30.8
0
92.3
11.5
88.5
0
0
92.3
46.2
96.2
0
0
92.3
3.8
3.8
0
0 20 40 60 80 100
Dyslexia A
Dyslexia B
Dyslexia C
Dyslexia D
Dyslexia E
74
100
88
100
74
96
100
98
84
88
74
96
100
94
78
88
96
98
94
64
42
90
100
94
32
74.7
92.0
97.3
93.3
48
0 20 40 60 80 100
Dyslexia A
Dyslexia B
Dyslexia C
Dyslexia D
Dyslexia E
0
1.269
5.88
0.675
8.6
1.9
3.358
4.096
0.675
2.509
0 5 10
Dyslexia A
Dyslexia B
Dyslexia C
Dyslexia D
Dyslexia E
RAN dan RAS Words Reading
CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017 - Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology
Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education
846

with dyslexia C makes errors on phoneme
substitution (5 times, i.e. juga [ɟuga] ‘also’, to jaga
[ɟaga] ‘keep’); phoneme deletion (16 times (digraph):
for i.e. hijau [hiɟau] ‘green’ to hiju [hiɟu]); phoneme
transposition (hilang [hilaŋ] ‘lost’ to haling [halIŋ]);
word alteration (41 times, i.e. toilet [toilɛt] toilet -- dia
[dia] ‘she/he’). For child with dyslexia E, she makes
errors like phoneme substitution (19 times), for
example: [d] to [p], for word dari [dari] ‘from’ to pari
[pari]; [d] to [b], for word tadi [tadi] to ‘tabi’; [g] to
[p] like lagu [lagu] ‘song’ to lapu [lapu].
In connection with the phoneme substitution,
child with dyslexia E tends to alter voice consonant
sound to voiceless consonant sound. She also alters
words like taurat [taurat] ‘law’ to become naya
[naja], danau [danau] lake to be papa [papa] ‘father’,
child with dyslexia E also alters words to nonwords
like: spirit [spirit] spirit to tate [tate], senyum [səɲum]
‘smile’ to become ‘lepa’. As for the tasks to name
letters in RAN test, child with dyslexia A alters [d] to
[b] for 10 times, [p] to [b] for 3 times; child with
dyslexia C also alters [d] to [b] once, and [p] to [d] for
one time], child with dyslexia E alters [p] to [b] for 5
times and [d] to [p] for 7 times. As for other errors,
child with dyslexia A, C and E made phoneme
substitution, phoneme deletion, phoneme addition,
words to pseudo words alteration which indicated that
the dyslexic children have severe phonological
deficit.
3 CONCLUSIONS
Dyslexic children generally show different abilities in
reading. This study result suggests that 4 out of 5
dyslexic children show reading deficit. The reading
difficulties caused by naming speed and orthographic
processing skill deficit are faced by two Indonesian
dyslexics, amongst them: child with dyslexia C and
child with dyslexia E. As for the error classification
like phoneme substitution, phoneme addition, and
word alteration, it is indicated that phonological
deficit also gives big effect to the reading ability. As
for the child with dyslexia D who cannot read words
containing consonant cluster, it might happen due to
the children development, like the finding of
Anjarningsih (2015) that the normal children age 7-8
have difficulties in reading words with consonant
cluster. Furthermore, based on the study result, the
child with dyslexia B is able to read all words, it is
estimated that he receives more intensive reading
therapy than other dyslexics. To summarize, the
Indonesian children with dyslexia have rapid naming
deficit, phonological deficit and similar proportion of
orthographic deficits. Therefore, this result is broadly
consistent with Ho et al. (2003) and supports that
Orthographic Processing Skill and Phonological
coding skills are as predictors of word identification
(Burt, 2006).
REFERENCES
Anjarningsih, H.Y. 2015. Characterizing the reading
Development of Indonesian Children. Kolita 14. Unika
Atma Jaya
Burt, J.S. 2006, "What is orthographic processing skill and
how does it relate to word identification in reading?",
Journal of Research in Reading, 29(4) pp. 400-417.
Ho, C.S., Chan, D.W., Lee, S., Tsang, S., Luan, V.H. 2004,
"Cognitive profiling and preliminary subtyping in
Chinese developmental dyslexia", Cognition, 91(1) pp.
43-75.
Ivanti, A. 2003. “Evaluasi program mengajar pada anak
yang mengalami kesulitan pemahaman bacaan
berdasarkan curriculum-based evaluation (Studi
terhadap dua siswa disleksia di SD kesulitan belajar
khusus “Pantara”)” Universitas Indonesia. Fakultas
Psikologi
Liao, C. 2006. The development of phonological
awareness, rapid naming, and orthographic processing
in children learning to read Chinese (Order No.
NR23068). Available from ProQuest Dissertations &
Theses Global. (304959144). Retrieved from
https://search.proquest.com/docview/304959144?acco
untid=17242
Lyon, G.R., Shaywitz, S.E., Shaywitz, B.A. 2003. “A
definition of dyslexia.” Annals of Dyslexia, 53(1), 1-14.
Pennington, B.F., Cardoso-martins, C., Green, P.A., Lefly,
D.L. 2001. “Comparing the phonological and double
deficit hypotheses for developmental dyslexia.”
Reading and Writing, 14(7-8), 707-755.
Reid, G. 2011. “Special Educational Needs: Dyslexia 3rd
Edition (3)”. London, GB: Continuum. Retrieved from
http://www.ebrary.com
Rapid Naming, Orthographic Processing Abilities and Phonological Skill in Reading Performance of Indonesian Dyslexic Children
847