PicPsy: A new bank of 106 photographs and line drawings with written naming norms for Spanish-speaking children and adults.

The use of pictures as experimental stimuli is a frequent practice in psychological and educational research. In addition, picture-naming task allows the study of different cognitive processes such as perception, attention, memory and language. Line drawings have been widely used in research to date but it has begun to be highlighted the need for more ecological stimuli such as photographs. However, normative data of a photographic set has not been published yet for use with children. We present PicPsy, a new standardized bank of photographs and matched line drawing. We collected written picture-naming norms for name agreement, unknown responses, alternative names, familiarity and visual complexity. A total of 118 native Spanish-speaking children in grades 3-4 participated in the study. For comparison purposes, 89 adults were also included in the study. Child and adult performance was highly correlated, but we found significant age group differences in all variables examined except for visual complexity. Researchers and teachers could benefit from using the new standardized bank reported here which is published under public domain license. The data and materials for this research are available at the Open Science Framework, https://osf.io/nyf3t/.

Predictors of Reading and Spelling Words Change as a Function of Syllabic Structure in Spanish / Los predictores de la lectura y escritura de palabras varían en función de la estructura silábica en español

We investigated the longitudinal predictors of reading and spelling of words and pseudowords with different syllabic structures in a shallow orthography. Participants were 47 Spanish-speaking children from kindergarten to second grade. Letter knowledge, phonological awareness, and rapid automatized naming were evaluated at the beginning and at the end of the school year, and reading and spelling skills were assessed at the beginning of the following year. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed that letter knowledge was the strongest predictor of reading and spelling words and pseudowords with simple syllables after 6 and 12 months. Phonological awareness predicted reading and spelling stimuli with complex syllables. Mediation analysis confirmed the mediator role of phonological awareness in the relationship between letter knowledge and reading and spelling with complex syllabic stimuli. This research provides longitudinal evidence that the syllabic structure determines the role of letter knowledge and phonological awareness in reading and spelling skills in Spanish. Understanding the knowledge that is key to learning to read and write may lead to improving methods and materials for literacy in Spanish language

Investigamos los predictores longitudinales de la lectura y escritura de palabras y pseudopalabras con diferente estructura silábica en una ortografía transparente. Participaron 47 menores de 3º de Educación Infantil a 2º de Educación Primaria cuya lengua materna era el español. Al principio y al final del año escolar se evaluó el conocimiento de las letras, el conocimiento fonológico y la denominación rápida automatizada y al principio del año siguiente se evaluaron las habilidades de lectura y escritura. Los análisis de regresión múltiple jerárquica revelaron que el conocimiento de las letras fue el predictor más fuerte de la lectura y la escritura de palabras y pseudopalabras con sílabas simples después de 6 y 12 meses. El conocimiento fonológico predijo la lectura y escritura de estímulos con sílabas complejas. El análisis de mediación confirmó el papel mediador del conocimiento fonológico en la relación entre el conocimiento de las letras y la lectura y escritura con estímulos silábicos complejos. Esta investigación proporciona evidencia longitudinal de que la estructura silábica determina el papel del conocimiento de las letras y el conocimiento fonológico en las habilidades de lectura y escritura en español. Comprender qué conocimientos son esenciales para aprender a leer y escribir puede conducir al perfeccionamiento de métodos y materiales de alfabetización en lengua española

LEXIN: a lexical database from Spanish kindergarten and first-grade readers.

The LEXIN database offers psycholinguistic indexes of the 13,184 different words (types) computed from 178,839 occurrences of these words (tokens) contained in a corpus of 134 beginning readers widely used in Spain. This database provides four statistical indicators: F (overall word frequency), D (index of dispersion across selected readers), U (estimated frequency per million words), and SFI (standard frequency index). It also gives information about the number of letters, syntactic category, and syllabic structure of the words included. To facilitate comparisons, LEXIN provides data from LEXESP's (Sebastián-Gallés, Martí, Cuetos, & Carreiras, 2000), Alameda and Cuetos's (1995), and Martínez and García's (2004) Spanish adult psycholinguistic frequency databases. Access to the LEXIN database is facilitated by a computer program. The LEXIN program allows for the creation of word lists by letting the user specify searching criteria. LEXIN can be useful for researchers in cognitive psychology, particularly in the areas of psycholinguistics and education.

Normative study of the implicit causality of 100 interpersonal verbs in Spanish.

This study provides normative data on the implicit causality of interpersonal verbs in Spanish. Two experiments were carried out. In Experiment 1, ratings of the implicit causality of 100 verbs classified into four types (agent-patient, agent-evocator, stimulus-experiencer, and experiencer-stimulus) were examined. An offline task was used in which 105 adults and 163 children had to complete sentences containing one verb. Both age and gender effects in the causal biases were examined. In Experiment 2, reading times for sentences containing 60 verbs were analyzed. An online reading task was used in which 34 adults had to read sentences that were both congruent and incongruent with the implicit causality of the verb. The results support the effect of implicit causality in both adults and children, and they support the taxonomy used.

Reading errors in first- and second-grade readers of a shallow orthography: evidence from Spanish.

BACKGROUND: Studies focusing on reading errors can help to understand how children learn to read and to structure key components of reading instruction. However, no prior studies have examined which letters might be a greater source of difficulty for beginning readers in Spanish. AIMS: First, to examine the pattern of reading errors in beginning readers in a shallow orthography like Spanish with a particular focus on both the context-dependant (c, g, r) and the visual similar (b, d, g, p, q) consonants. (The dual-route cascade model is used as a theoretical framework for predictions.) Second, to examine the effect of visual similarity on orientation reversals, using upper and lower case letters. SAMPLE: Ninety Spanish-speaking children (45 in Grade 1 and 45 in Grade 2) participated in the study. METHOD: Children were required to read aloud both words and non-words. Seven categories of errors were examined. To clarify the influence of visual similarity of easily confused consonants (b, d), upper and lower case letters were used. RESULTS: We found that most reading errors (as a function of opportunity) were due to context-dependant consonants (c, g, r), and a small proportion were due to the remaining consonants, or even the visually-similar consonants. Further, visual similarity of reversible letters had a significant effect on orientation reversals. Finally, there was a significant influence of factors such as syllable frequency on the number of word errors. CONCLUSIONS: The implications of these findings for early reading instruction and future research are discussed.

Frecuencia de producción de las respuestas a 52 categorías verbales en niños de primaria / Production frequency of responses to 52 verbal categories in children

Se presentan datos normativos de las respuestas a 52 categorías verbales de 484 niños de los cursos 1º a 6º de primaria (rango de edad = 6 a 13 años).Todas las categorías, excepto tres, se tomaron de los estudios de Soto et al.(1982/1994) y de Battig y Montague (1969). Los niños respondieron a cada categoría en 60 seg (1º y 2º curso) o en 30 seg (3º a 6º curso). Se proporciona la frecuencia de producción de cada respuesta y el número de veces que cada respuesta apareció en primer lugar en cada categoría y curso, además del rango medio de cada respuesta en la muestra total. Se examina el número medio de respuestas, el número de ejemplares diferentes, el índice de respuestas comunes y el índice de diversidad, en cada categoría y curso. Los resultados se comparan con los de otras normas de niños y adultos. Estos datos son una herramienta para la investigación que emplea estímulos verbales, la docencia y el desarrollo de tests educativos y psicológicos (AU)