Resumen La comprensión lectora resulta fundamental en la vida escolar de los niños, dado que constituye el principal mecanismo para la adquisición de nuevos conocimientos. Distintos estudios han analizado la relación entre la comprensión lectora, las habilidades lingüísticas y el nivel lector de los sujetos. Sin embargo, resulta importante para el estudio del procesamiento textual, atender también al tipo de estructura de los textos. El presente trabajo se propone comparar el desempeño de un grupo de niños hispanohablantes en comprensión oral y escrita de dos tipos textuales distintos: narrativos y expositivos. Para ello, se evaluó a un grupo de 32 niños de 4to grado de una escuela primaria del conurbano bonaerense argentino mediante pruebas de comprensión oral y escrita de textos narrativos y expositivos. Además, se administró una prueba de vocabulario y de precisión y velocidad en la lectura de palabras. Los resultados señalaron la existencia de correlaciones entre la comprensión oral y escrita de los dos tipos textuales evaluados, y entre el desempeño en comprensión oral y escrita y el nivel de vocabulario de los niños. El análisis comparativo entre modalidades de presentación señaló un desempeño significativamente superior en la comprensión de textos narrativos orales frente a los escritos. Esta diferencia no se trasladó a los textos expositivos en los cuales los niños obtuvieron desempeños bajos, en ambas modalidades. Los datos obtenidos sugieren que los textos expositivos presentan un formato con características específicas que complejizan la comprensión de los niños más allá del soporte en el cual se presenten.

Abstract Reading comprehension is the ability to create a mental representation of a written text. It constitutes the main mechanism through children incorporate new knowledge at school age. Reading comprehension achievement has been systematically associated with oral comprehension and reading rate. Furthermore, both oral and reading comprehension has been related to inferences generation and different linguistic abilities, like vocabulary and syntax processing. In the case of text comprehension, also orthographic recognition of written words plays a fundamental role and, for that reason, reading comprehension would be a greater challenge than oral comprehension for early readers. Indeed, word recognition during reading is essential for text meaning construction. It is well known that a slow and laborious reading mechanism would overload cognitive processing and that reading automaticity is essential to carry out text processing. Longitudinal studies realized in different orthographies indicated that reading rate was the variable that had greatest impact on reading comprehension in early readers. In studies carried out in shallow orthographies, it was also observed that reading performance have an important impact on reading comprehension measure after 3 to 5 years of instruction. However, although impact of reading skills and oral comprehension mechanisms on reading comprehension has been reported in several studies, there is another important factor to consider: text structure. Studies propose that children tend to understand “narrative schemas” more easily since they are exposed to this type of text from a very early age. Likewise, all narrative texts present, in general, the same type of structure, respect temporal sequence of events and focus on story characters, their actions and motivations. In contrast, expository texts present new information to children, are oriented to a specific topic, contain less familiar and more technical vocabulary and a higher level of abstraction. This type of structure presents numerous cohesive connections and greater propositional density than narrative texts. The present study aims to compare listening and reading comprehension of narrative and expository text. For this, a group of 32 4th graders was evaluated in oral and reading comprehension of narrative and expository texts. In reading comprehension test, children read narrative and expository texts and then orally answered a series of questions. In oral comprehension, both narrative and expository texts were read aloud to children and then they answered questions about the texts orally. Vocabulary and reading rate were also measured. Data analysis shows correlations between oral comprehension and vocabulary. Reading comprehension were associated to vocabulary, oral comprehension and reading rate. Results suggest that oral and reading comprehension are associated with different linguistic skills and to each support access skills. In comprehension test, measures show higher performance in narrative oral comprehension texts when compared to reading comprehension. This result could be related to children reading rate. In fact, reading performance shows that children were “slow readers” according to the reading tests scales used in this study. Difference between oral and written comprehension in narrative texts, was not transferred to expository. In this type of texts children had low scores, without significant differences, in oral and reading comprehension. Results suggested that expository structures challenge children comprehension in both, oral and written modality. It is suggested that different types of expository texts difficult hierarchization of information that allows, in turn, the construction of text mental representation. Data of this study suggest the importance of establish interventions that allow children to improv text processing for access higher levels of comprehension in different textual structures. Furthermore, it is necessary in educational practices to expose children to expository structures from an early age. On the other hand, it is necessary to rethink reading instruction methods that originate low reading performance.

Resumen La comprensión lectora resulta crucial para el desarrollo infantil. Sin embargo, en contextos de pobreza existe un alto porcentaje de niños con muy bajo desempeño en dicha habilidad. El presente trabajo analiza la relación entre el nivel lector, las habilidades de comprensión de lenguaje oral y de comprensión de textos escritos en niños que crecen en contextos de pobreza en el marco de la visión simple de la lectura. Para ello, 59 niños de quinto grado fueron divididos en dos grupos: niños con velocidad de lectura típica y niños con escasa velocidad de lectura. También se evaluaron las habilidades de comprensión lectora, comprensión de lenguaje oral, vocabulario y procesamiento morfosintáctico de ambos grupos. Los resultados señalaron que fueron las habilidades lectoras y de procesamiento sintáctico oral las que explican las diferencias en comprensión lectora. Los datos obtenidos alertan sobre la importancia de analizar las variables que impactan en la comprensión de textos escritos en poblaciones que no son las mayoritariamente descriptas en la bibliografía sobre el tema.

Abstract Reading comprehension is important for child development. However, there are many children growing up in contexts of poverty who do not achieve the expected reading comprehension level. The present study aims to analyze the relation among reading skills, oral language comprehension, and reading comprehension in children who are growing up in contexts of poverty by drawing on the Simple View of Reading framework. To do this, 59 ninth graders were separated into two groups: students with average reading speed and students with lower reading speed. Reading comprehension, oral language comprehension, vocabulary knowledge and morphosyntax processing were evaluated. Results show that reading skills and syntax processing explain differences in reading comprehension. These findings warn about the importance of analyzing the variables that affect reading comprehension in populations that are not the majority described.

Résumé La compréhension de lecture devient cruciale pour le développement de l’enfant. Cependant, dans un contexte de pauvreté, il y a des enfants ayant un très bas niveau de performance en ce qui concerne cette capacité. Cette recherche analyse le rapport entre le niveau lecteur, les compétences de compréhension du langage oral et de compréhension de textes écrits chez des enfants qui grandissent dans un contexte de pauvreté, dans le cadre de la vision simple de la lecture. Pour ce faire, 59 enfants de CM2 ont été divisés en deux groupes : celui des enfants ayant une vitesse de lecture habituelle et celui des enfants ayant une vitesse de lecture faible. L´on a évalué également les habiletés de compréhension de lecture, de compréhension du langage oral, le vocabulaire et le traitement morpho-syntaxique des deux groupes. Les résultats ont révélé que les habiletés de lecture et de traitement syntaxique oral expliquent les différences au niveau de la compréhension de lecture. En outre, les résultats avertissent sur l’importance d’analyser les variables qui influent sur la compréhension des textes écrits auprès des populations qui ne sont pas celles décrites majoritairement dans la bibliographie sur le sujet.

In this work the processing features of gender and number in subject-verb agreement and subject-predicate adjective in the sentence production in Spanish was investigated. As a general objective, in this work we set out to investigate the processing of the features that come into play in both subject-verb and subject-adjective predicative agreement in our language. Specifically, an attempt will be made to answer if the features of gender and number are processed in the same way, if the feature have a default value and if the values present differences, that is, if the singular differs from the plural, and the masculine from the feminine. This will allow us to establish if any of these values is more error-sensitive. In addition, we seek to identify the role of the marking concept. Under the paradigm of error elicitation we designed an experiment in which the Gender of the head noun (N1) and local noun (N2) (Masculine-Feminine),and the Number of N1 and N2 (Singular-Plural) was manipulated: Example: El abuelo (N1) del niño (N2). 20 subjects participated in the experiment which were presented in visual form the basis of the adjective for 500 ms. (PEINAD_) and then the preamble (4000 ms.) The participants read and completed with the verb "to be" and inflected adjective: Example: El abuelo del niño está peinado. Each participant was given a list of 128 targets. The pattern of errors and omissions of subject-verb agreement (S-V) and subject-predicate (S-P) was analyzed. The results showed main effects of number and gender. The data indicated that the participants produced more attraction errors of S-V when the local noun was in plural; while the most influential feature for S-P agreement was the feminine gender of the head noun of the subject. In summary, in relation to the agreement between the subject and the verb, and specifically, for the number feature, classical asymmetry was found, with greater interference when the head noun appeared in singular and the local noun in plural. The surprising fact, which could come to light given the characteristics of the design of the experiment, is that the attraction occurred more strongly when the gender of both nouns matched. With regard to agreement of subject- adjective predicate, and with respect to the gender of the nouns and the adjective, a main effect of the gender of the head noun was found, with more errors when the N1 appeared in feminine. We also found an interaction between the gender of N1 and the gender of N2, with more errors when the N1 appeared in feminine and N2 in masculine, and at the same time when the number of both coincided. The data suggest that it seems that the most influential feature to make the agreement between the subject and the predicate adjective is the gender of head noun, with a higher probability of interference when it appears in the feminine gender. In sum, our experimental research gathered evidence that allows us to progress in the characterization of how and when the processing of agreement and interference occurring in situations forced by experimental conditions as in natural speech. In particular, we analyze the characteristics of the gender and number features and the role of the marking concept. The data obtained in our experimental work were analyzed in terms of a general theory of processing so as to inform a production model of the still developing agreement.

En este trabajo se investigó el procesamiento de los rasgos de género y número en la producción de la concordancia sujeto-verbo y sujeto-adjetivo predicativo del español. Bajo el paradigma de elicitación de errores diseñamos un experimento en el que se manipuló el género del sustantivo núcleo del sujeto (N1) y del sustantivo interfiriente (N2) (masculino-femenino), y el número de N1 y de N2 (singular-plural): Ejemplo: El abuelo (N1) del chico (N2). Participaron del experimento 20 sujetos a los que se les presentó en forma visual la base del adjetivo por 500 ms (PEINAD_) y luego el preámbulo (4000 ms.) que debían leer y completar con el verbo ser o estar y el adjetivo flexionado. Ejemplo: El abuelo del chico está peinado. A cada sujeto se le administró una lista con 128 targets. Se analizó el patrón de errores y de omisiones de la concordancia sujeto-verbo (S-V) y sujeto-predicativo (S-P). Los resultados arrojaron efectos de marcación de número y de género. Los datos indicaron que los participantes produjeron más errores de concordancia S-V cuando el sustantivo interfiriente estaba en plural; mientras que el rasgo más influyente para la concordancia S-P fue el género femenino del sustantivo núcleo del sujeto. Los datos obtenidos en nuestro trabajo experimental fueron analizados en términos de una teoría general del procesamiento de modo que permiten informar un modelo de producción de la concordancia aún en desarrollo.

ABSTRACT: Several studies have found that factors of different nature (semantic, morphological and syntactic) affect the computation of subject-verb agreement during sentence production (BOCK; MILLER, 1991; FRANCK; VIGLIOCCO; NICOL, 2002; HARTSUIKER et. al., 2003; HASKELL; MACDONALD, 2003; VIGLIOCCO; BUTTERWORTH; SEMENZA 1995) The aim of this paper are: a) to investigate the influence of the linear order of constituents, exploiting the relative flexibility of Spanish; b) inquire whether a semantic variable, such as distributive reading, and a morphological variable, such as manipulation of the number of local noun, are factors that affect the processing of the agreement. We designed an experiment using an image description task with preambles in which the order of the subject of the sentence (pre-verbal or post-verbal), the type of preamble (nominal phrases with distributive and non-distributive reading) and the number of the local noun (singular-plural) was manipulated. The results showed a main effect of the local noun number, the type of preamble and the linear order of the constituents: more subject-verb agreement errors occurred when the sentence presented an asymmetry in the number of nouns (N1 Singular- N2 Plural), the phrases had a distributive reading and the order was subject-verb. The results seem to indicate that syntactic, semantic and morphological factors interfere together in the agreement processing in Spanish and support the postulates of the interactive models of agreement production. In addition, they provide evidence to a general processing model in which the different factors work as keys to the retrieval of information in the agreement computation (BADECKER; KUMINIAK, 2007).

RESUMEN: Varios estudios han comprobado que factores de distinta naturaleza (semánticos, morfológicos y sintácticos) afectan el cómputo de la concordancia sujeto-verbo durante la producción de oraciones en numerosas lenguas, entre ellas el español (BOCK; MILLER, 1991; FRANCK; VIGLIOCCO; NICOL, 2002; HARTSUIKER et. al., 2003; HASKELL; MACDONALD, 2003; VIGLIOCCO; BUTTERWORTH; SEMENZA 1995; entre otros). Los objetivos de este trabajo fueron: a) investigar la influencia del orden lineal de constituyentes, explotando la relativa flexibilidad del español; b) indagar si una variable semántica, como es la lectura distributiva, y una variable morfológica, como es la manipulación del número de sustantivo interfiriente, son factores que afectan el procesamiento de la concordancia. Se diseñó un experimento utilizando una tarea de descripción de imágenes con preámbulos en los que se manipuló el orden del sujeto de la oración (preverbal o postverbal), el tipo de preámbulo (sintagmas nominales con lectura distributiva y no distributiva) y el número del sustantivo interfiriente (singular-plural). Los resultados mostraron un efecto principal del Número del sustantivo interfiriente, del Tipo de preámbulo y del Orden lineal de los constituyentes: se produjeron más errores de concordancia sujeto-verbo cuando la oración presentaba una asimetría en el número de los sustantivos (N1 Singular- N2 Plural), los sintagmas tenían una lectura distributiva y el orden era Sujeto-Verbo. Los resultados presentados parecen indicar que factores sintácticos, semánticos y morfológicos interfieren en conjunto en el procesamiento de la concordancia en español y apoyan los postulados de los modelos interactivos de producción de la concordancia. Además, aportan evidencia a un modelo general de procesamiento en el que los distintos factores funcionan como claves para la recuperación de la información en el cómputo de la concordancia (BADECKER; KUMINIAK, 2007).

Black and White Picture Categorization: differences in the processing of living things and inanimate objects. Oral naming is the most used task assesses in order to identify dissociation in processing of living things (LT) and inanimate objects (IO). The performance of controls on this task is controversial. In general an advantage for the domain OI is detected. Some researchers have postulated that this advantage could be the product of the pre - semantic processes. The structural similarity of LT could explicate theses results. The aim of this study is to detect possible differences in LT and IO processing with a pictorial categorization task. The structural similarity could facilitate the categorization of LT. Nevertheless, the results show an advantage for IO. The results obtained are discussed in terms of the pre - semantic and semantic processes.

La tarea más utilizada para identificar disociaciones en el procesamiento de seres vivos (SV) y objetos inanimados (OI) es la denominación oral de dibujos. El desempeño de controles en esta tarea es controversial. En general se detecta una ventaja para el dominio de OI. Algunos investigadores han postulado que esta ventaja podría ser producto de procesos pre-semánticos. La mayor semejanza estructural de los SV dificultaría poder acceder al ítem específico para su denominación. En este trabajo se indagan posibles diferencias en el procesamiento de SV y OI por medio de una tarea de categorización de dibujos. Teniendo en cuenta que la tarea de categorización de dibujos podría verse facilitada por la mayor semejanza estructural se esperaba que los controles obtuvieran un mejor desempeño con SV. Los resultados dan cuenta de una ventaja a favor de OI. Los resultados obtenidos son discutidos en función de los procesos pre-semánticos y semánticos.

Patients with acquired brain injury may have difficulties in processing a unique semantic category. In patients with the most common semantic deficits, living things is the most commonly compromised domain. Nevertheless, the results of assessing healthy participants are contradictory. Most studies with healthy participants reported better performance with the category of living things, whereas other studies have reported better performance with artifacts, depending on the type of material used. Although researchers generally use black-and-white pictures to assess semantic categories, this kind of material omits an essential perceptual attribute in processing living things: colour. This study assessed a group of young healthy participants to determine differences in naming living things and artifacts in a naming task using black-and-white pictures. The stimuli used were matched according to the major lexical-semantic variables: name agreement, visual complexity, lexical frequency, conceptual familiarity, age of acquisition, number of syllables, and number of phonemes. The results show that healthy participants are more accurate and faster at naming when categorizing artifacts and that artifacts have an advantage over the category living things in which colour is a key attribute (animals and fruits/vegetables). This advantage is lost in relation to the category body parts in which colour is not an essential attribute for their recognition.

Los pacientes con lesiones cerebrales adquiridas pueden presentar dificultades para el procesamiento de una única categoría semántica. El dominio de seres vivos se altera con mayor frecuencia. Los resultados obtenidos en tareas de denominación en controles son aún contradictorios. La mayor parte de las investigaciones reportan una ventaja significativa para seres vivos en promedio de aciertos y velocidad de respuesta. No obstante, dependiendo del tipo de material utilizado, algunos trabajos identificaron una ventaja para artefactos. Con frecuencia se utilizan dibujos sin color, omitiendo el atributo perceptual "color" fundamental en el procesamiento de seres vivos. El objetivo de este trabajo es evaluar, en un grupo de controles jóvenes, posibles diferencias en la denominación de seres vivos y artefactos con una tarea de denominación con tiempos de respuesta omitiendo el atributo semántico color. Los estímulos se emparejaron en las principales variables psicolingüísticas: acuerdo en el nombre, complejidad visual, frecuencia léxica, familiaridad conceptual, edad de adquisición, cantidad de sílabas y número de fonemas. Los resultados muestran que los artefactos se denominan con mayor precisión y velocidad. Asimismo las categorías incluidas en el dominio de artefactos obtienen una ventaja significativa frente a las de seres vivos pero sólo en las que el atributo perceptual color es fundamental (animales y frutas/verduras). Esto no ocurre con la categoría de partes de cuerpo en la que este atributo no es fundamental para su reconocimiento.

Several studies on literacy acquisition conducted in different orthographies such as English, French, Finnish and Italian have shown that morphemes play an early role in visual word processing such as reading and lexical decision. Also, the degree of consistency or transparency between orthography and phonology in a language seems to play a role in the size of the processing units used by young readers. In scripts with highly inconsistent grapheme - phoneme correspondences such as English or French units larger than the grapheme are early used due to the unpredictability of grapheme - phoneme finer grain size mappings. Thus morpheme -and whole word- based reading are early developed by children in these languages. Conversely, in highly consistent languages like Italian or Spanish the grapheme is a reliable unit for visual word processing since almost invariably a single grapheme maps onto a single phoneme. In the acquisition of such scripts whole word reading would be developed later on. This diminished morphological effect in normal development has been explained based on the influence of larger grain size units such as whole words as children master of literacy increases. For instance, Italian developing readers have been shown to be early affected by the morphological components of a stimulus but morphology continued to affect visual word processing only in older children with reading difficulties. Thus this morphological sensitivity seems to develop early in childhood even in transparent orthographies as Italian and it has been described to continue affecting processing only in individuals with reading difficulties. However and to the best of our knowledge very few studies on the influence of morphology in Spanish children have been conducted. None of them was on the influence of morphology in visual word processing tasks such as word reading and lexical decision. That is why the aim of the present study was to obtain evidence of the role of morphology in early literacy acquisition in Spanish. Three groups of children from 2nd to 4th year of primary school participated in the study. Participants were administered a lexical decision and a reading task with high and low frequency words and: (1) morphological non-words made up of morphemes combination (root and suffix); and (2) non-morphological simple non-words. The results showed an effect of frequency in the processing of words, i.e., better processing of highly frequent words as compared to low frequency ones. The influence of a lexical variable like frequency shows that the orthographic input lexicon is also early organized in children that learn the script of a transparent language. In lexical decision morphologically complex non-words were processed with more errors than morphologically simple non-words. In other words, morphology had an inhibitory effect in lexical decision because children had a tendency to accept morphologically complex non-words as real words. This inhibitory effect is compatible with the (at least partial) morphological organization of the orthographic input lexicon. Morphological complexity had the opposite effect during reading of non-words. Morphologically complex non-words were read with fewer errors than morphologically simple non-words. This facilitator effect of morphology for reading can be explained by the fact that for efficient reading children will rely more on larger grain size units like morphemes (as compared to the slower and less efficient grapheme-phoneme based reading processes). In sum, the results of the present study provide evidence of the early organization of an orthographic lexicon that includes morphemes as representation units in Spanish. These units are used by early readers during visual word processing of new stimuli. Such morphological processing proves more useful than sub lexical grapheme-phoneme conversion processing because it deals with larger-grain units than single graphemes and phonemes.

En lenguas con distintos sistemas ortográficos como el inglés, francés, finés e italiano se encontraron efectos de la presencia de morfemas en tareas que involucran el procesamiento de palabras escritas durante el desarrollo lector. Esta sensibilidad a la morfología se observa muy tempranamente en los lectores y también se ha descripto en niños con dificultades en la lectura. El objetivo del trabajo que se informa fue obtener evidencia acerca del rol de la morfología durante el proceso de aprendizaje de la lectura en español. Para ello se evaluaron tres grupos de niños de segundo a cuarto grado con tareas de decisión léxica y de lectura en voz alta, utilizando palabras y no palabras morfológicas, compuestas por dos morfemas en una combinación nueva y no palabras simples, sin componentes morfológicos. Los resultados mostraron, por un lado, un efecto de frecuencia para el procesamiento de palabras en ambas pruebas y, por otro, un efecto de interferencia de los morfemas en la tarea de decisión léxica y de facilitación en la lectura en voz alta para las no palabras compuestas por morfemas. Estos efectos se interpretan como el resultado del desarrollo temprano de un léxico ortográfico que incluye morfemas como unidades de representación utilizadas por los lectores iniciales para el reconocimiento y la lectura de estímulos nuevos. Esto se produce en detrimento de los procesos sublexicales que usualmente se utilizan para procesar estos estímulos nuevos y que son más lentos y laboriosos puesto que procesan unidades menores que el morfema o la palabra completa.

We present the results of a syntactic priming experiment aimed at investigating the syntactic information represented in the lexical entries of verbs. By means of a written sentence completion task that manipulated the combinatory properties of a set of verbs (by selecting either a NP or a IP or a CP) we found that participants tended to use the previously experienced structures in the new sentences. This effect was found either when the prime sentences were the ones participants had produced before (Condition II) or when primes were previously read sentences (Condition I). This confirms previous findings (i.e. Bock, 2002; Bock et al. 2007) in the sense that priming takes place from comprehension to production as well. These experiments also showed that priming was sensitive to CP/IP distinction but not to constituents' internal structure. These findings enable us to infer that combinatory information (Pickering y Branigan, 1998) associated with lemma nodes of the verbs (Levelt, Roelofs y Meyer, 1999) is at phrasal level, and that it codifies the categorial nature of the XP selected by the verb.

Este trabajo presenta una experiencia de priming sintáctico dirigida a investigar la información sintáctica representada en las entradas léxicas de los verbos. Mediante una tarea de completamiento escrito de oraciones que manipuló las propiedades combinatorias de un conjunto de verbos (que seleccionan o bien un Sintagma Nominal o bien un Sintagma de Flexión o bien un Sintagma de Complementante) se mostró que los participantes tendían a utilizar las estructuras que habían experimentado previamente al completar nuevas oraciones. Este efecto se verificó con la misma intensidad cuando los facilitadores eran oraciones que los participantes habían producido (Condición II), como cuando se trataba de oraciones que habían leído (Condición I), lo que confirma hallazgos previos (i.e. Bock, 2002; Bock et al., 2007) en cuanto a que el priming tiene lugar de comprensión a producción. El experimento también mostró que el priming era sensible a la distinción SC/SF pero no a la estructura interna de esos constituyentes. Este hallazgo permite inferir que la información combinatoria (Pickering y Branigan, 1998) asociada a los nodos lema de los verbos (Levelt, Roelofs y Meyer, 1999) es de nivel sintagmático y que codifica la naturaleza categorial de los sintagmas que el verbo selecciona.